switching from Virgin Media

andrewf75

I currently pay around £50 per month for broadband, phone and basic TV with a Tivo box, but I feel I could cut out the TV as we only watch freeview. They keep sneaking the price up and won't upgrade us to the latest box so I feel I should quit.

Problems are:
1. Virgin broadband is reliable and fast, is it risky to switch?
2. We do use the functionality of the Tivo box eg multiple recording so buying an equivalent box outright is £200 or so
3. We have an old dish but no aerial so freeview rather than freesat has an additional upfront cost.

Any thoughts much appreciated!

AndyPK

Do some sums on freesat v freeview.
I.e pvr cost and installation.

If Ariel is the answer get one installed or a quote and provisional install date.

Phone vm and tell them you want to ditch tv due to cost and that bb and phone should only cost. 25 quid looking at supplier (insert name). Tell them you and intending to move to that supplier.

Hopefully they will do you a deal.

At the 11th hour sometimes they will say you can keep TiVo but free channels only.
They may not do this, so you need to have chosen a pvr to order once the TiVo has left the house

spadoosh

I made my decision this morning.

Gone with vodafone broadband and im going to get a youview box for the tv. Total cost is £24 per month plus whatever i can find the youview box for on ebay. Vodafone are giving me a 'free' gift for signing up with their broadband.

IMO youre not going to beat virgins internet. That said if your a regular user, you dont need to. Ive been living off sky's fibre package (~30mbps) for the last year and its noticeably different from virgin but only really bad when OH is watching netflix and on facebook watching video, whilst im on my xbox, gaming and watching a how to on youtube. Ive had sky for the last year or so and it seems a similar package to what is elsewhere on the market.

My understanding is the youview+ works like a sky or virgin box. Pause and record live tv. Theres subscription and standalone prices.

andrewf75

AndyPK wrote: »

At the 11th hour sometimes they will say you can keep TiVo but free channels only.
They may not do this, so you need to have chosen a pvr to order once the TiVo has left the house

If they let me keep the tivo box what could I do with it without a subscription?

AndyPK

Watch and record free channels.

They allow this.

andrewf75

So basically the box could be used as with a subscription? I only have free channels anyway. This basically just confirms what a con it is charging so much for free channels. It would make some sense if like phone contracts they upgraded your box now and again, but they don't. If you're paying an on-going sub for a box surely it should be upgraded. The fact that they are likely to not even bother collecting it just confirms it isn't worth what I pay for it!

Thanks, I will be prepared to buy a freesat box, but hopefully they will leave me the tivo

AndyPK

I think that is a little unfair.

They still have to enable the card to allow this.
You can't just buy one off eBay and expect it to work.

If the box were to fail they would replace it.

Pikeyp

The TIVO boxes (even the old ones!) work just fine without the card inserted ... you won't get much out of it though if there's no signal coming down the pipe! .. and it still belongs to VM of course so they might want it back!

Some unscrupulous folk might consider taking the hard drive out and using it in a caddy ...