How much flexibility does switching away from VM fibre give ?

Dave360180 · 6 January 2018 at 12:05PM

I think there are a few of us on here who currently have VM fibre, no phone line, are mostly happy with the service BUT could get cheaper elsewhere with a phone line.

It seems that would give more flexibility switching around in future, just because there's more competition for packages including phone line.

Any experience of whether it's worth the hassle ? I'm thinking of things like how hard is it to ensure you're not without service for a few days when switching, do you just need to wait in for engineer one time then not in future, posting equipment to and fro, anything else etc.

Cheers all

Inner_Zone · 6 January 2018 at 12:26PM

As VM and BT lines are totally separate you can overlap one service with the other no need for any downtime. Maybe downtime usually a few hours when switch BT line providers in the future. If you don't have a BT line the an engineer will install one and that will require you to be home for one day, equipment is usually self install and posted to you.

Dave360180 · 6 January 2018 at 8:44PM

Great, thanks.

I guess I had always thought switching broadband was more work than switching other stuff eg car insurance - but I'm just going to ditch VM if they don't come up with a competitive retentions offer.

AndyPK · 7 January 2018 at 12:10PM

it was my theory too. Get rid of VM and then it will be nice and easy to switch between OR providers.

I haven't managed to leave them yet when I push VM hard enough, they give me a price that is close enough to the offer not to be worth the trouble.

ALso the OR database says I can't get fibre most of the time (even when I can) so check that you can go thru the order process.

just tell vm what price you can get else where and see what they can do.
took about 3 calls to get it all squared.

I think the VM service will be faster. min 50mbps
where as you will be quoted a speed for OR when you go thru the order process (and depends how close to your street fibre cab you are)

Buzby · 7 January 2018 at 5:29PM

There’s someone who cannot see the wood for the trees! Virgin offer 200Mb/s service and pretty reliable in most areas. Not fibre, as it uses Co-ax. Anything else requires OpenReach to provide a twisted pair irrespective of who your supplier is. You can then get under 20Mb/s as standard (or pay extra for a “Fibre” service that truly isn’t, still the same twisted pair, but now your service is 79Mb/s.... still nowhere near VM’s 200Mb/s.

Sure, there’s greater choice - but based on speed, all the rest are horrifyingly more expensive. Compare equally.

Bigphil1474 · 10 January 2018 at 8:08AM

Agree with Buzby - we've just had VM network installed in our area and the speeds they offer (and are achieving with neighbours) are 3 times as fast even with the 100mb option. I'm thinking of switching to them at the moment. We're about half a mile from the phone exchange and are supposed to be on fast fibre but only get about 26mb/s on an average day. Have to say that VM price model is a bit weird though. I can get a 12 month package for BB and phone with anytime calls, for less than just BB on its own according to their website.

Inner_Zone · 10 January 2018 at 11:30AM

Been that way for quite a few years now. When I had NTL installed 14 years ago it was the other way around when VM took over NTL and Telewest changes to reversing tariffs started.

macman · 10 January 2018 at 11:46AM

There's really no hassle switching broadband suppliers: the only complication with ditching VM is that you must have a working BT line installed or reprovisioned, since VM uses it's own network.
No BT line means no alternative supplier.
The switching downtime with ADSL or FTTC based services is rarely more than a couple of hours: I've probably done 5 switches in the past 10 or 12 years, and never had a major problem.

How much flexibility does switching away from VM fibre give ?

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