Save money with Virgin Media Cable Internet

amtrakuk

A tip for cable internet users only - NOT ADSL (phone line broadband)

I used to have all 3 services from Virgin Media (Tivo, Internet and Phone). All was well but I felt a but cheated with paying the Line Rental for the phone when I only used it a few times a month.

A friend suggested a VOIP setup - simular to Skype but with a proper handset and phone number.

Off Ebay I won a "SNOM M9" cordless DECT IP phone - these being better than a cheaper cordless IP handset as these have a habit of dropping out.

Signed up with voiptalk.org for an IP account which got me a temp landline number for me to give it a try. Put the account details into my snom m9 and connected it to my virgin router. All went well so with voiptalk so with their help I ported over my landline to my voiptalk account.

Once that was done, phoned up virgin and informed them of my intentions. In the retentions department I told them I wanted to close all my accounts except the broadband which I wanted to leave it as-is.

From approx £50+ a month I'm now a freeview user and my monthly virgin bill is £20 for my TV, high speed broadband and phone and Ive still kept my landline number and I no longer pay the pesky £17.50 a month landline

The cost of calls are very reasonable. I "top up" my voiptalk account with about £10 every couple of months.

Like I said this will only work for Cable Modem users. If you use the phone line for your internet connection this won't work as you will need to keep your phone line.

kingrulzuk

Sounds good to me

im going to try it too

Thanks

visidigi

Its an okay idea, just remember you will need a mobile or similar if you have an emergency during a power cut.

Your line rental is also £15.99 not £17.50 and you are having to pay more for your BBand because you don't have a Virgin Media phone line as part of the bundle, but aside from that, yes there are savings to be made...

Tigsteroonie

I priced this up on their website last week as if I were a new customer, and because of the Bundle discounts it didn't work out any different whether we took the landline phone option or not (30Mb BB & Tivo). I'm hoping I can negotiate with them on that, we are definitely happy to lose the landline in the next house and just use Skype & mobiles.

kwikbreaks

Cancelling the phone line with the minimum calls deal saves about £3 usually because of the increased BB charge. If there is a calls package in place or a TV package then there may be an additional saving.

I originally took BB + phone to get a free install but ditched the phone after the minimum term. I was originally using an ATA (analalogue telephone adapter) together with calls from some company or other that was pretty cheap but eventually I went with Vonage as they offered things like caller display and a proper local phone number. I stuck with them even after moving from cable to FTTC as the pricing was pretty much the same as taking a calls package.

smartphone

The other thing to mention about using Vonage is that I noticed you had to purchase a DECT IP phone to use the service, whereas with Vonage you can just plug in a standard home phone

kwikbreaks

You get a box that plugs into your router and accepts any sort of phone with Vonage. You can buy the same sort of device for use with any VOIP. From memory I covered the cost of the Vonage box with Quidco or TopCashBack - it was ~ £30 at the time.

Vonage only charge per minute for charged calls - there is no connection fee and no hang up and redial if you go over 60 minutes. 0845 0870 are not free but not overly expensive either and you can usually find alternatives through SayNoTo0870 anyway. CallerId and blocking features are free.

If there is no broadband for any reason there is no phone either though and you'd need a mobile at those times if you need to call.

amtrakuk

kwikbreaks wrote: »

Cancelling the phone line with the minimum calls deal saves about £3 usually because of the increased BB charge. If there is a calls package in place or a TV package then there may be an additional saving.

I don't understand when you say increased BB charges. I was on the essentials package (£44 (inc line rental) a month) and calls were very expensive, a national rate half hour call after 6pm would be about £1 - hence my bill being £50 a month.

Now I'm paying £22 a month (no line rental needed) for 30 MB unlimited BB and phone and calls are a lot cheaper. A half bout call being 35p

Quiet_Spark

amtrakuk wrote: »

Now I'm paying £22 a month (no line rental needed) for 30 MB unlimited BB and phone and calls are a lot cheaper. A half bout call being 35p

You are saving such a huge amount because you ditched your TV service as well as your landline.

Ypaymore

You dont actually save the full cost of line rental doing this, and new customers normally have to factor in a installation cost: £49.95.

Worth bearing in mind you can use 18185 on VM via their Freephone 0808 access number for cheaper calls.

EG: 5p connection 1p a minute to 01/02/03 numbers.

http://www.18185.co.uk/mobilerates.php

kwikbreaks

Ypaymore wrote: »

Worth bearing in mind you can use 18185 on VM via their Freephone 0808 access number for cheaper calls.

You can but last time I used that type of service it still cost 1p a minute rather than just the 5p setup and 0p a minute. That was why I moved from that type of service to VOIP.

The VOIP I used at the time gave you 90 days free geographic calls when you bought £12 credit (iirc) and you could then use the credit to pay for calls. I continued to use the VM line for incoming calls. The snag was your VOIP number looked strange on callerid and sometuimes people wouldn't answer it as they though it was telemarketing.

Once my minimum term was up and I ditched the phone line I transferred my number to Vonage and have used them ever since. Now I'm on FTTC and need a phone line again I could possibly save a little bit by taking a call package instead but stuck with Vonage anyway.