Virgin Media - downgrade or ditch altogether?

Welliesorter

I've been a Virgin Media (formerly NTL, originally Diamond Cable) customer for about 10 years and have cable TV, a phone line and broadband.

Currently the cable TV isn't working (the box is deceased, no more, gone to meet its maker etc) but I haven't got round to reporting it.

The phone line is never used; it was only installed because I was told I'd be paying the same whether I had it or not.

I've had the same cable modem since 2001. It's currently connected to a cheapo wireless router and I've never had any problems with it.

For this package I pay roughly £55 per month, which seems rather a lot for what I'm getting, although it's a lot less than some of the amounts I've seen mentioned on here.

In the near future I need to change broadband supplier as it's going to be paid for by my employer. This means I'll have to have ADSL on my BT line. I can therefore dispense with Virgin altogether and I'm tempted to do this.

However, terrestrial reception in my road isn't great and I'd quite like to retain a minimal cable TV package. If I decide to do this, could I just downgrade to the £11 per month phone line rental, with the 'M' TV package included, or is that only available to new customers? Is there an alternative for someone who has no need of a Virgin phone line?

If I decide against ditching Virgin, will I need an engineer's visit to replace the dead set-top box or is that a DIY job now?

Thanks in anticipation.

banger9365

do you watch all the channels or just some like me ,could you live with a freeview box ??have you got two phoneline coming in to your home (BT line and virgin line)get rid of one , if you boss is paying for adsl no nead for cable then .
so looks like you could save some money about £55 a month or £660 a year to me .
if you ring them up for a new box they will send a engineer out to replace it

Welliesorter

Yes, I do have a BT line and a Virgin line. I don't think the Virgin line even has a phone plugged in. No-one knows the number.

I could live with the Freeview channels: I already have a decent Freeview box and get most of the channels most of the time but it's very weather-dependent: good when it's cloudy, erratic when it's clear, unusable in heavy rain. This is with a signal booster. I realise that I could probably improve matters by getting a new aerial but I'm in a relatively poor reception area anyway: neighbours have their aeriels on long poles!

So the only reasons for even thinking of keeping cable would be poor terrestrial reception, and possibly the on-demand stuff. I realise that any option is going to cost more in the long run than a new aerial, so the balance of the argument is still in favour of ditching. I just wondered whether there's an ecomomical way of retaining cable tv.

banger9365

i would ditch the phone now and broadband when you get the adsl from work and ring them up to see if they will give you a deal on the tv side because you have been paying for a phone you have never used for 5/6 years and see what they say you never now

peter999

You can downgrade to Free Tv pack (size M).

See post #1323 for deals people were getting.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=4959096#post4959096

peter999

Welliesorter

Thanks for the replies. From peter999's post I assume I'm correct in thinking that the £11 package is the minimum.

I'll wait till my ADSL is working before I make the final decision.