Currently on Virgin media tv and vivid 100meg broadband. Full to package minus sky sports with TiVo box which is shockingly slow. On demand services seem to work 3 out of 7 days a week, broadband has never been above 60 meg dl 7meg upload since I was upgraded from 50 meg. Tried changing channels, turning all connected devices off.
It gets even slower in the evening.

The TiVo ui is dreadfully slow, and still no option of uhd. I’m paying £90 per month for this.
Did a quote with sky they want £65 per month for the same thing, bt roughly the same but BT Want £154 installation and sky £54.99.
House does have a sky dish from previous owner and a bt line but the bt line is all frayed and pulled out the box.
Any thoughts on changing providers?

Can’t help but will watch thread with interest. We are with virgin and it’s shit. Tivo box is as slow as and broadband was upgraded from 50 meg to god knows what. It’s regularly showing 20-25 when tested.

DO NOT GO TO BT.

In my experience its much of a muchness, been with BT, then Sky, back to BT again at the minute, neither service is particularly flawless and don’t get the advertised speeds but when they are all as poor as each other what do you do!
Whichever one you choose (and this may help your decision) make sure you go through Quidco first, last time I switched from Sky to BT got £180 simply by using Quidco (took 6 months to come through mind).

BT here for a few years, No problems, always as fast as it’s supposed to be.

As Zippy said, steer clear of BT. Incompetent buffoons….

DO NOT GO TO BT.

It’s MY job on this forum to say that. 🙂

Had fibre optic Virgin services in previous house, bloody brilliant, fast as you could want your internet and seemingly instant download speeds for on demand services and movies, would happily multitask and allow connection of multiple devices too with no change in performance.

Now in an area without fibre optic cabling and having to use sky instead, films have to be downloaded overnight and watched the next day, streaming from Amazon on demand services requires phones to be disconnected from the Wi-Fi otherwise we get buffering and stuttering….almost makes me wish I was back in the South East, almost.

i have the same Virgin broadband package as you dude (£30). its awesomely quick but maybe because the main exchange is literally just outside my house, the Tivo is thrown in for free but mostly standard channels very few HD channels. TiVO is the slowest UI that’s true that I want to hit it with a hammer every time I use it. nothing beats SKY when it comes to TV package… BT probably the worst in TV package which I had before my Virgin package.

they have the new TiVO box smaller one which they say a bit quicker, they give me the old one huge like DVD player.. I cant complain as its free.

DO NOT GO TO BT.

+1. I have had virgin and BT and virgin is MILES AND MILES AND MILES better than BT.
the router kept shitting itself (at least 3 times in an evening). Many of the channels come through the router so at a crucial point in the game, you’d lose the feed. The router was also shite. Virgin gave a strong signal to my garage, the BT one gave none at all. Their claims to have the best routers are complete and utter bollocks.
I’d consider virgin and Sky, but I’d sooner have nothing than BT. It is that bad.

Virgin suck balls, especially if the cable is flakey as they are unable to fix issues without making a total mess, if able to fix it at all. The infrastructure in some towns is antequated and they’re trying to shove huge broadband down wiring designed for 80s analogue TV. Hybrid fibre-coax is susceptible to a lot of noise and gets messed up by your neighbour’s crap connections. And then you get onto the shitty customer service.

But anyway.

BT doesn’t have to be BT. Just get a line provided by BT Openreach but from someone with infinitely better customer service, e.g. PlusNet (owned bizarrely by BT!). Avoid TalkTalk at all costs.

Sky… lock ins, pricey, local loop unbundled in some places which means you’re on their equipment in the exchange which means more lock in. Poor support and they demand you use their routers.

Sky over Virgin, have had both, Virgin was awful, cancelled virgin the first minute I could. Sky TV is much faster, user interface far more use friendly, Skygo much better than The virgin equivalent. Virgin Broadband kept dropping out, constantly rebooting the router. Plus you have sky Atlantic channel which virgin doesn’t. TBH I wouldn’t have virgin if they gave it me for free. If I recommend you to sky we both get a £50 prepaid master card.

To add to my earlier post, once you’re on a BT line for broadband, provided by whoever, you can still get Sky TV. Don’t have to get it all from the same provider.

Or re-evaluate the TV and see if you really need all that junk anyway, given so much is available via download (even legit methods). Thinking of ditching Sky TV myself as most of what I watch I could probably get simply using BBC iPlayer (and likewise the other channels’ own players), and Amazon and/or Netflix. Maybe complemented by Freeview or Freesat.

As said above, I’ve had no problems with BT. The router is fine, I get wireless all over the house and in the garage. I can’t remember the last time it stopped working.
Clearly some people aren’t as lucky as me. But that’s the same as with any provider. I don’t use the BT TV, or Sky, or Virgin. I would suggest picking the provider that has the TV you’ll watch, or save money and just have free to air TV.

Like the OP, I had TV & BB from Virgin. A couple of years back I cancelled the TV package and bought a BT-branded YouView box for £150. For our usage, I don’t think we’ve lost any of the functionality compared with the TiVo box. I can still record individual programmes and series – and it’s got a decent smartphone app.

I also have a NowTV movies subscription, which I can stream through the YouView box. All comes to just over £50/month for Virgin phone & BB, and NowTV movies. If you don’t use your phone line you could always get a broadband-only deal through Virgin, that saves another £10. It’s definitely a somewhat mongrel setup, but it’s an alternative to switching providers. 🙂

Virgin suck balls, especially if the cable is flakey as they are unable to fix issues without making a total mess, if able to fix it at all. The infrastructure in some towns is antequated and they’re trying to shove huge broadband down wiring designed for 80s analogue TV. Hybrid fibre-coax is susceptible to a lot of noise and gets messed up by your neighbour’s crap connections. And then you get onto the shitty customer service.

This would suggest that you weren’t in a cabled/fibre optic area. All the Virgin install from the 90’s is fibre with fresh copper to the premises. Usually signified by the terrible conduit runs from the house to the roadway.

I’ve done the same as uberscott

I’ve just sacked Sky off for Virgin.

The BB is loads better with Virgin and I like the fact that I can connect to either box to watch stuff. We’re on the full house package with an extra box and is saving £40 a month which isn’t to be sniffed at.

The Sky UI is way better though but I don’t know how much of that is down to being so used to it.

BT are hopeless. We used to have a BT phone and internet but they couldn’t find / sort a fault on the line which meant lots of crackling on the line. Sky managed to sort it when we changed to the despite it still being a BT line!

I was in a cables v*rg*n area, and it was the shittest shit I could have imagined.

How many times have any of the V apologists had to call their woeful ‘customer’ service?

After months, and months and months of broken bullshit promises, bullshit fixes and bullshit shit, I cut my losses.

I would rather get my internet through an empty baked bean can and a bit of string than go back to that half soaked ‘fibre’ bullshit.

Anyway. Sky approximately 10000000 times better, and you don’t have to get RSI when clicking through the shitty TiVo box.

Seriously considering sacking the TV package when the current deal runs out. I reckon I can get by with freeview, netflix, rugbypass and maybe even NowTV. It would be loads cheaper and I’d not be paying for stuff (like soccer) that I don’t even watch.

60 meg dl and 7meg ul and your complaining… but £90 wow thats incredible what people will pay for some junk on TV.

Anyway the reason for my post is to say i used to be with sky normal BB about 7mbps dl and about 1mbps ul due to living in the sticks.
Ive since moved and sky want me to pay 40 something odd pounds for fibre, they said i cant get normal broadband in my area now LOL wtf?

I dont need any tv service so i decided to test mobile data and to my utter gobsmacking suprise i can get EE 4G and i typically get between 28 and 40mbps dl and 1.5-5mbps ul.
so i now have EE 4G at £23 for 16GB on rolling 30 day contract. you can top up for more GB if needed. i dont stream much, just surf and email etc
i can even use this on the go in the car etc.

So im saving money and get more than acceptable speeds for my use. way better than my old normal broadband..

Hmm … I am with Virgin and get 200 mbps. The only issue is that the wireless router seems to get the signal absorbed by the back wall of the house meaning some room shave only 30 mbps. And for some reason Netplugs don’t work …

I have giving up Virgin TV but keeping the fibre and telephone. Sometimes it drops out but it is no worse that Plusnet was (though BB rather than fibre). But my package went from 56 GBP to 120 GBP – which was just taking the piss. Even Virgin agreed it was a little of a shocker.
But that was with BT sports HD and Sky sports (none HD)
We tend to fond ourselves looking at regular terrestrial TV/ Netflix so not worth the extra money. So its going back to freeview/ Netflix and Amazon Prime ..