Working out the costs of ditching Virgin service bundle

littlerock · 15 July 2017 at 2:40PM

We currently have a Virgin package of phone tv and broadband (cable). The broadband package is a "bundle" consisting of Talk Evenings and Weekend, V+ HD box, Full House TV (XL) and Superfibre 60. This costs £71.46 per month. ( The fibre has just been upgraded to 100mb - I think at no extra cost but have yet to see latest bill.) The phone is extra for line rental £19.

We don't watch that much TV to be honest and scarcely used use the Virgin phone so I called to see if I could get the price down. No chance. Guy said it was a cheap deal discounted because we had the full package. If we downsized or removed any element the cost overall would increase. He then said he could offer me a discounted rate on upgrading to a new set top box.

Well I was over at my brother's last week and he has a BT 50mb Infinity feed for internet and Freeview TV and it looked fine to me. He did say however they have fibre direct to the local cabinet. I spoke to OH and he said he wanted to keep Eurosport. I see that this is now going to be available as a stand alone service from Amazon and as I already have an Amazon Prime Video sub I could add it to that.

So I have been trying to work out a) how much a revised deal -
based on BT 50mb broadband (we have Infinity locally) Free View TV and Amazon Prime with Eurosport as well - would cost b) how long introductory period would last and c) would it increase astronomically after the initial period?.

Starts to seem like you need to be a rocket scientist to work it all out. Plus would it be very difficult to turn off Virgin and turn on the others?

JJ_Egan · 15 July 2017 at 3:07PM

Rocket Science .
Start with your VM contracts how much longer left to run on each contract .

BT bb contracts are 12 18 24 months depending upon package .Then revert to standard charge unless you renegotiate contract .
Amazon yearly charged .

littlerock · 15 July 2017 at 3:19PM

So far as I know we are out of contract on the whole deal with Virgin.

JJ_Egan · 15 July 2017 at 4:11PM

If you are out of contract try removing what you don't want .

BT BB Infinity 1 is £34-99 pm 12 month contract including line rental .
BT TV can be added and Bt Sport .

AndyPK · 15 July 2017 at 5:12PM

If you are out of minimum contract, just tell them you intend to leave.

You should be able to get it under £40.

You may actually have to put in your notice.

I wouldn't go with BT, as their prices rocket after 12 months.

Try EE, plusnet, talktalk

JJ_Egan · 15 July 2017 at 5:32PM

Does not everybody's price not rocket once out of contract .

Not that i have ever gone that far with multiple ISPs .

AndyPK · 15 July 2017 at 5:48PM

BT are particularly bad. Can be 3 times the price!

I think talktalk are good at keeping the price low.

littlerock · 15 July 2017 at 8:34PM

I did ring Virgin a few months ago and asked if I could drop one element to save money but he said it was a bucket deal which included a discount and it would cost more if I dropped one element. Where can I see what BT costs out of contract? I assume I can have just BT broadband? We do need 50mb broadband. My sister is with PlusNet and it is very slow but that may just be where she lives.

Ian011 · 15 July 2017 at 9:58PM

Do you make more than one hour per month of weekday, daytime calls to any of the following numbers...
- UK geographic numbers starting 01 or 02,
- non-geographic numbers starting 03, or
- UK mobile numbers starting 071-075 or 077-079?

If you do, upgrading to the "unlimited anytime" call package for around £9 per month will save you money.

With an evening and weekend call package you are paying more than £7 per hour for weekday, daytime calls to landlines and more than £11 per hour for weekday daytime calls to mobiles. It takes only around one hour of these calls per month for this to work out more expensive than having the unlimited anytime call package.

JJ_Egan · 16 July 2017 at 9:33AM

littlerock wrote: »

I did ring Where can I see what BT costs out of contract? I assume I can have just BT broadband? We do need 50mb broadband. be where she lives.

BT web site has standard charge .
https://www.productsandservices.bt.com/products/broadband-packages/##packages

Just BT broadband includes line rental .

50 meg well that's the maximum speed and may not be your speed .It depends upon the distance from the cabinet and the quality of your line from the cabinet .
VM is a different high speed optical cable .

Timalay · 16 July 2017 at 9:55AM

JJ_Egan wrote: »

Does not everybody's price not rocket once out of contract .

Not that i have ever gone that far with multiple ISPs .

I'm on Plusnet Fibre Broadband only contract, and even though the price has gone up by an extra £2.50 to new customers, my price hasn't gone up (even when I signed a new contract for their newer router). They also offer BT Sport 1 for free if you take their YouView box. You can get all BT sports channels for an extra £5 a month. You can get them on Sky's service also, but this will cost you £12.49 instead.

Working out the costs of ditching Virgin service bundle

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