Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 20 total)
  • alternatives to Virgin media? who are best value for broadband, tv & phone?
  • Zedsdead
    Free Member

    Evening all,
    Looking for some advice on alternatives to Virgin.

    A bit of background. Many years ago we signed up to NTL for television. Things were fine, many channels, didn’t cost much. Then one day Virgin bought NTL and we continued with them. At some point way back they suggested we ditch our BT phone and bundle it together with their tv. This was also fine. Then a while later we got a computer (this is making me realise just how long we have been with them!) and they offered the wonderful world of internet which of course could be added to the package and bundled together.

    So this was all good for many years. However, lately I’ve been thinking that it’s getting rather expensive. And I don’t like how they work either. Things like “would you like a free Tivo box?” but in reality I pay for it via a monthly fee. “You have a free upgrade to xxMB broadband speed” when in reality they sneak in an extra fiver onto your bill every 6 months for bollocks reasons.

    Sitting here and looking at what we pay for and what we use it’s not value for money. I called and told them it was too expensive and they brought the bill to £66 per month for the following:
    L tv pack
    unlimited calls from/to landline
    100MB broadband

    Now the tv is rubbish. No HD channels. Not many interesting channels. No movies or sports but that’s fine as I know its quite a bit more for those.
    But we don’t really watch it. Netflix is used a lot more in the house.

    Phone – £18 a month line rental!!! Maybe it’s just me but I think that’s shocking!
    Combined with the fact that we hardly use the land line this is definitely not good value. And even removing the unlimited calls it doesn’t really make any difference to the package bill.

    Broadband – well we have 3 kids and we all use it. But I have no idea if we actually need a 100MB connection?

    So, what good alternatives are out there?

    For tv I thought about freeview. Is it any good? What else is there worth looking at?

    For telephone I wondered about Skype – can you get a Skype handset and call people like a regular phone? I really resent being charged £216 per year for a crappy bit of copper cable! The sound quality is baws too!
    Again we hardly use it. I make 2 calls a week to my parents. Maybe the odd call outwith that if need be.

    Broadband, Virgin were always pretty good and reliable with this but the cost has gone up a lot! And to add insult to injury it’s not very reliable over the past year. We’ve called to let them know and I’m now fed up getting through to a call centre where a person reads from a script.
    Who else can provide a reliable connection which will give us enough for the family to watch Netflix, play Playstations, browse the net and whatever else?

    Apologies for the long winded post. Any advice is much appreciated.

    TheFlyingOx
    Full Member

    I’d go back to Virgin in a heartbeat. Had them when we lived in Edinburgh and they were faultless and the best price by far.

    Currently with BT because they’re pretty much the only option other than Sky, who are extortionate.

    We pay about £70/month for which we get land line, “up to” 76Mb internet (generally closer to 40Mb, but that’s plenty fast enough), a YouView TV box which has all freeview + about 15 HD channels + BT Sport channels, and 2 x BT SIM only mobile contracts each with 4GB data. Take the mobiles off and it’s £50/month. It’s not too bad considering what’s included vs what Sky offer, but the sooner Virgin are on the village the better.

    mudshark
    Free Member

    Now the tv is rubbish. No HD channels. Not many interesting channels. No movies or sports but that’s fine as I know its quite a bit more for those.

    Really? I have a lesser TV option (M+) and get a few HD channels, inc Film 4, and Eurosport.

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    MattEmulsion
    Free Member

    Just wondering the same as the OP, especially as I’ve just recived another notification about an increase to my monthly bill.

    The vodaphone home broadband offer looks interesting. I’d use freeview and netflix for TV. Anyone tried it yet?

    cchris2lou
    Full Member

    i pay £65 / month for Virgin .

    that is XL tv , lots of hd chanels , bt sports .
    200mb broadband .
    and phone , free week end .

    Sandwich
    Full Member

    Better the devil you know. BT will be no better. Generally our Virgin set up has worked ok. Every so often I ring and talk to retentions and get a reduction in the bill.

    Zedsdead
    Free Member

    Hi MattEmulsion,

    I just had a quick look at the Vodafone broadband you mentioned. This actually looks pretty good (if it’s reliable) and is a possible solution for what I am looking for.

    This would mean £25 for broadband which looks like it will have plenty bandwidth for us.

    tv as I said we just don’t watch so I’m happy to sack that off and get a freeview box. £0

    telephone, well the BT monopoly can take a flying fu.. to itself. I don’t see how £18 a month is justified when you can get a SIM for say £7.50 from GiffGaff and it has more than plenty minutes included for all the phone calls I make…

    Or am I making a mistake and the salespeople are actually right? Although my view is that the salespersons sole purpose is to extract as much cash from me as possible…

    km79
    Free Member

    I went from virgin tv, broadband and landline down to broadband only a while ago. Hardly watched the cable tv channels, full of repeats I’d seen numerous times before. Netflix etc is better. Phone was mainly used to receive nuisance cold calls, everyone but parents calls me on mobile anyways, parents soon learned. The broadband is great though, definitely keep that.

    Unless they make some drastic changes to their business model they will soon be struggling. TV channels and landlines are relics from the past.

    sadexpunk
    Full Member

    we havent paid for a tv subscription for ages, suits us. spose it depends whether youd miss it.

    we all have mobiles in our house so need for landline, but to get the broadband we ‘have to have’ the basic phone line and package included.

    so i think its about £22 we pay for cheapest broadband (50Mb?), a ‘weekend free phone calls’ thing which we still dont use, and no tv package. like you we sometimes watch netflix, box sets on our android box or chromecast and just the free tv which is good enough for us (ambulance/granddesigns/locationlocation type stuff)

    just had the virgin price increase letter yesterday, its going up £3.50 which makes us look at alternatives but honestly dont think we can find it cheaper anywhere else. so ill, watch this thread with interest, all we want is a decent broadband connection.

    n0b0dy0ftheg0at
    Free Member

    It’s your local TSB rep here 😆 , the BT cashback is what started me off on this summer 2015, it basically covers the cost of the BB for a year! 😯

    https://www.topcashback.co.uk/bt_total_broadband/

    sadexpunk
    Full Member

    It’s your local TSB rep here

    whats TSB?

    the virgin letter states we can cancel if we’re not happy with the increase, so if theres an offer thatd work out cheaper im all ears….

    simon_g
    Full Member

    Happy enough with Plusnet, £33/month for phone line and 76Mb vdsl.

    Bought a BT Youview box off ebay (one of the newer/smaller ones), we don’t get the extra BT stuff but it works perfectly for everything else including recording, catchup, netflix, etc. It’s a decent thing to use, snappy performance and very quiet. Plusnet and others do offer it bundled in these days with the extra services if you prefer, no need to go to BT.

    We always have a backlog of recordings and/or netflix/amazon stuff to watch so never really feel the need for more channels we won’t watch.

    Cougar
    Full Member

    Why are you paying line rental on a cable service?

    Stay with virgin, ditch the landline completely and use your mobile? the only calls I get on mine are people asking about PPI and my recent car accident that wasn’t my fault, and my mother.

    footflaps
    Full Member

    Virgin will price match. I phoned up a year ago saying drop the price or I’ll move to TalkTalk (or whoever it was). Anyway, they price matched the rival for a year. Just got the end of year notice / price rise letter last week, so will try it again in a few weeks….

    xcgb
    Free Member

    .

    Gary_M
    Free Member

    Possible stupid question but do you get sky sports with virgin? Our estate has just been cabled with virgin and looks cheaper than sky, but junior watches a lot of sky sport. I’m happy with eurosport for cycling though.

    wilburt
    Free Member

    I’m not familiar with cable supplier but just been through all this withh BT and Sky.

    We are also slightly different in having the whole family hooked on internet services( the kids dont even watch tv, think its just for old folk) so we need unlimited fast fibre broadband.

    I binned off Sky and BT and have taken out broadband from Plusnet, its all the same infrastructure I just get a new router and save £30 a month.

    I’m trying to replace Sky with Apple TV ( the new device is very good imo) using. Netflix, Now TV and Iplayer, You tube, which works for me, the other Apps and access to all home media is a bonus.
    My wifes not convinced( old habits) though so we may end up keeping some kind of Sky discounted deal on a retention offer.

    All in all though, its left me think we will all be getting our TV online sooner or later.

    BTW the old set up for BT and Sky was about £100 a month, new including various subscriptions and BB is about £50.

    garyfisher
    Free Member

    I haggle with Virgin once a year and currently pay under £40 monthly for 70Mb broadband and the minimum phone and TV package (M for both). Tend to top up the TV with either cheap boxsets or Netflix/Amazon film deals through the winter which I let lapse when the weather peaks up in the spring. Looking at the results on broadband speedtest I get 70Mb and my broadband is way faster than other suppliers in the area (bristol). Haven’t found any other suppliers who can match it.

    bensales
    Free Member

    If you’re on Virgin cable it’s worth keeping. Especially as you said there are 3 kids and you all use Netflix. The 100Mb will be about right, possible even higher worth it.

    But sack off the phone and TV, there are better options. We canned the tv a little while ago as we realised everything we were watching was on Free HD as well. I rang to cancel the tv and phone and keep the broadband, as again, we’d gone mobile-only. They ended up giving me phone and 100mb BB for £35 a month which I’m perfectly happy with for a cable connection that also includes a 10Mb upload speed.

    SammyC
    Free Member

    Just in the process of binning Virgin TV/phone. Need to keep the broadbean as I work from home in IT.

Viewing 20 posts - 1 through 20 (of 20 total)

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