Currently on Virgin Media - should I change to Sky?

[dannyboy83]

Hello,

I am currently on virgin Media (formerly a Telewest customer) and have the TV Drive (or V+), basic TV and phone free weekend calls) packages and 4Mb broadband.

Am very happy with the service, but it seems quite expensive. I'm currently paying over £60 a month for the above and got Sky Sports added over Christmas, which is an extra £26 a month since the Viorgin takeover.

Having looked at the Sky website, I can get (up to) 16Mb broadband, free evening and weekend calls, and "2 mixes" for TV.

All of this for £25 (plus £11 for BT line rental = £36)

Pros - potentially faster broadband, free evening calls and slightly more channels.

Cons - need to get a dish installed, the hassle of changing.

**not sure if I pay extra to get Sky Plus box.

If the above is correct, it's a heck of a saving.... but I think I'm paying over the odds with virgin anyway, and might be able to negootiate a deal with them.

opinions wanted.

[MD]

negotiate.

I pay £65 a month with Vm, get 4mb BB, XL TV, Sky Sports 1,2,3 and XL, phone line, talk unlimted, V+ box and second settop box upstairs.

Search Bargain forums for NTL and you will see the retentions number.

Be calm, do your homework first and go at them with figures. But make sure your figures are right, they will check.

Sky+ box is £99 I beleive and then £10 a month btw....

[flcherb]

Sky+ is great £60 seems a bit steep for what you are paying for the sky deal looks a good one.

Herb

[[GSV]Trig]

I'm on basic phone and basic TV with 10Mb broadband.
Paying about £55pm I think, net's £35 and the tv/phone is about £20 iirc
I've also had a poke around the Sky website and theres savings to be had...

[MD]

dont forget the associated costs - Sky requires a BT line for broadband, if you dont have it its expensive to get activated.

I recon you could get a V+ box for free and maybe half price BB - that would save you a packet over sky.

Remember, although the channels are limited at the moment, V+ is a HD box, the equivalent on Sky is £300 JUST for the box.

[[GSV]Trig]

Aye there is that I suppose, not a BT customer, havent been in years.
The only reason I use NTL for the phone and TV was back in the day when they started putting cable out you had to be acustomer to get BB so I just had the basic pack for £17.99 I tihnk it was at the time, that has gone up as well as expected, not getting anything new but they want more money for it lol.

[dannyboy83]

I do have an HD tele, so if there's more HD to come from Virgin, it'd be welcomed.

Think I'll try negotiating first.

[MrP]

hopefully if there not going to drop the basic price (according to the BBC website) then they might be a bit more flexable on the V+ box.

does anyone know if they have rolled out HD everywhere, or is it still being slowly rolled out across different regions?

[Spud1]

Switch to sky with sky+ based on that information.

I wouldn't even take the HD side of things into consideration yet, theres not enough channels to justify it yet, and by the time it becomes more mainstream the boxes will be much cheaper - more like the cost of a sky+ box now.

Sky+ is free if you subscribe to any premium package, so no £10 a month extra there - instead just get sky sports or movies and the sky+ sub is free Plus if you are moving from Virgin and mention this to Sky, haggle a bit and you are likely to get some special deal, such as 6 months free movies (which also means 6 months free sky+) - look around on TV, in the papers, online for special deals like that with sky..there are loads.

The installation worries? Sky were in and out of our house in one morning, fitting a dish and 3 boxes (one sky+ 2 normal) - no problems, MUCH better than when we got NTL fitted before that...the Sky man actually cleaned up his mess!

Then theres the fact you get a sky+ box, so you get all the PVR benefits with a nice, FAST interface (although i've not seen the new virgin software yet..so can't compare)..it really does make all the difference.

Oh and you would get to watch SkyOne etc - surely that has to be the last nail in the coffin for virgin

[MrP]

depends where your comming from, the only things i watch on sky one are stargate and repeats of star trek. so while its gone, its not something i am going to lose sleep over

[dannyboy83]

Telewest broandband was always pretty reliable for me, is Sky broadband any good?

To be honest, I think the internet is more important to me than the landline and TV.

[kopite]

Sky broadband is now on LLU so you dont need a BT phoneline at all anymore as SKy do both the phone and broadband side of things.

I Love sky TV not with them for BB as I get mine frree from Zen for working for them and phone from BT.

[haloman]

Personally, if I were you, I'd phone up Virgin and negotiate a better deal. Apparently they're offering very good deals at the moment to people who are phoning up!

[BUFF]

Sky broadband is now on LLU so you dont need a BT phoneline at all anymore as SKy do both the phone and broadband side of things.

"To get our £26* combination, you need to live in an area covered by our broadband network – or one where we're switching it on soon - & have an active BT line"
http://packages.sky.com/surf/

[Steve B]

i was under the impression that to get any adsl service, you needed to have a BT landline installed?

[Lourdes]

The Sky packages are pretty good. Just be sure not to go for the "Connect" broadband as they limit and throttle that.