blue is the colour Posted 11 April 2014 Posted 11 April 2014 Been with sky for ages and overall the TV package is excellent . However my HD box is playing up. Now before I put the call into sky giving the normal sob story and they knocking some cash off for six months I would like to know people's opinion on Virgin. Kids play online a lot and hear the fibre optic broadband is a lot better than sky. Your opinions would be appreciated.
AKCJ Posted 11 April 2014 Posted 11 April 2014 Been with sky for ages and overall the TV package is excellent . However my HD box is playing up. Now before I put the call into sky giving the normal sob story and they knocking some cash off for six months I would like to know people's opinion on Virgin. Kids play online a lot and hear the fibre optic broadband is a lot better than sky. Your opinions would be appreciated. I don't know if you plan on getting the Virgin broadband too but I would highly recommend avoiding it. Seems to cut out for 10/15 mins daily.
Larry_LCFC Posted 11 April 2014 Posted 11 April 2014 I have sky tv and Virgin firbe optic broadband. Phoned up sky the other day and got £30 off a month for a year so gonna stick with them. And I don't think you can really beat virgins fibre optic. Fast and reliable + they are putting it up to 100mb speed for free sometime in the next few weeks. Sorted!
Tom17LCFC Posted 11 April 2014 Posted 11 April 2014 Yeah got virgin internet at uni and it cuts out fairly often. We had the virgin tv and broadband package at home as well and it cut out all the time so we had no tv and no internet, was down for 24 hours at 1 point!!
Xen Posted 11 April 2014 Posted 11 April 2014 I'm with Virgin currently in my student house, and we just went for the 60mb internet, with no landline. Decent price, great service and manages to work fine even with all 6 of us connected at once. TiVo is supposedly really good, though I havent experienced it myself. I know BT sport is included in a lot of their packages though (which I dont think is the case for Sky) and thats where the premier league matches are going to be broadcast next season.
One Legged Beaver Posted 11 April 2014 Posted 11 April 2014 I'm with Virgin broadband this year and it is quite frankly awful, cuts out at least 4-5 times a day and we've already decided to switch to BT next year.
Rincewind Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Virgin. TV, phone and internet. Looked at my bill today and got a shock. Don't know how it comes to what they made it. I watched a couple of films but I thought they came under different months. Saw a mini TV on a narket stall the other day. Was shown it working. Has a built in receiver. Don;t know how the TV license affects it but it would be too small for normal use or a family.
potter3 Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 That's weird, we've been with Virgin since it was NTL and it's never cut out once.
Guest Col city fan Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Having had both (on full packages) I'd go for Virgin every time. The tivo box is great.. massive storage and the broadband is really quick. Finally, its all cable... so no cut out of TV in a storm.
Lamby Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Virgin's net is hit and miss. Been through 3 routers in a year.
MooseBreath Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Been with virgin on fibre optic for about five years and have never had a serious problem. The connection speed is as promised and is up and running 99.9% of the time. So I have no complaints about the quality of the product as I believe it to be excellent. However they are bitches for price creep. It goes up in price about 10% per year unless you actively do something about it. The 'free' speed upgrades are all bollocks too, they are speed upgrades, but you can betyour life they won't be free for long. Still, well worth the slightly higher expense for me
Footballwipe Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Virgin broadband. Sky TV. This Virgin is fantastic for BB, the people above aren't typical Virgin users. There are sporadic times when the internet goes down but these for me are few and far between. I download up to 200GB per month and it's reliable, quick and doesn't drop out when at a consistent speed. Everyone is different based on the area they live, age of the fibres and their own general experience. Mine is super, others may not be. I had their television for a year, the TiVo box really is a good bit of kit, though it took me a bit of getting used to. It's miles ahead of Sky's boxes with the ability to record three things at once and is less 'idiot proof' than Sky, which is a good thing. The thing that let's Virgin down is its Sky Sport content. With only SS1 and SS2 in HD there isn't the comprehensive coverage you get from Sky. Plus the cost of SS alone on Virgin is eye watering. The other factor is the free call outs. Virgin (I think still) offer free tech call outs for TV and Broadband issues whereas Sky charge £50-60 for a tech call out if your tellybox is faulty because you own it, whereas you rent the TiVo box (they'll take it back if you leave them.) Split it if you can.
Alexikokopops Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Main differences: Internet - Virgin is fibre optic, which goes all the way to your house. The fibre optic that BT is rolling out (which Sky will use) uses copper wiring to get it to your house so isn't full on fibre TV - You'll get Sky Atlantic with Sky which you don't get on Virgin. You get BT Sport free with the XL TV package on Virgin. There's also TiVo vs. Sky Plus HD, so if you have any preference on them take that into account. Since Virgin is delivered through cable you won't get cut outs in a storm. In terms of complaints to Ofcom they're much of a muchness. Virgin is the best for broadband and phone. Sky is the best for TV. http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2014/03/26/latest-telecoms-and-pay-tv-complaints-figures-2/ Service-wise they're much of a muchness. With Virgin you get free engineer visits, not sure about Sky.
MooseBreath Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 How much are you guys paying to get sky sports through sky top of virgin internet?
Fox92 Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Got Virgin at Uni and it does cut out. Quite a pain actually, connection isn't that great.
Strokes Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Main differences: Internet - Virgin is fibre optic, which goes all the way to your house. The fibre optic that BT is rolling out (which Sky will use) uses copper wiring to get it to your house so isn't full on fibre TV - You'll get Sky Atlantic with Sky which you don't get on Virgin. You get BT Sport free with the XL TV package on Virgin. There's also TiVo vs. Sky Plus HD, so if you have any preference on them take that into account. Since Virgin is delivered through cable you won't get cut outs in a storm. In terms of complaints to Ofcom they're much of a muchness. Virgin is the best for broadband and phone. Sky is the best for TV. http://media.ofcom.org.uk/2014/03/26/latest-telecoms-and-pay-tv-complaints-figures-2/ Service-wise they're much of a muchness. With Virgin you get free engineer visits, not sure about Sky. That is not strictly speaking true, its hfc from cab to house and fibre from cab to the hubs. It is more than capable of the speeds it advertises and i believe there could be an upgrade in the pipeline. The Tivo is better than the sky box imo.
Strokes Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Anyone saying the broadband cuts out, keep a diary of it and phone and complain, you shouldn't pay for what you aren't getting.
Alexikokopops Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 That is not strictly speaking true, its hfc from cab to house and fibre from cab to the hubs. It is more than capable of the speeds it advertises and i believe there could be an upgrade in the pipeline. The Tivo is better than the sky box imo. Fair point. I'd be lying if I said I knew all the ins and outs of the network. I agree with you on the TiVo front, I just didn't want to appear too biased since I work for one of the companies involved
Trav Le Bleu Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 That's weird, we've been with Virgin since it was NTL and it's never cut out once. Same. These people who moan about it cutting out constantly should contact Virgin to tell them so, since obviously they must have a fault somewhere. Seems to me people are saying "got Virgin at Uni". Wouldn't happen to be the same Uni?
The God Emperor Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 drop outs and the like will have more to do with the cabling rather than provider. As an engineer who works on the network I tend to find areas that were cabled in the 70's to be generally the worst. lots of aluminium cable in those areas and in older areas it's not uncommon to find paper cored cable still in use.
sphericalfox Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Same. These people who moan about it cutting out constantly should contact Virgin to tell them so, since obviously they must have a fault somewhere. They'll probably not be taking into account, possible issues with their machine, if they are using a wi-fi connection and there's interference, and not directly through the router etc. There are potential problems with routers also, with simple solutions such as simply 'resetting' it, not necessarily the ISP. There are sometimes issues with the exchange, but very rare, and sometimes maintenance is needed at the switch (the green or grey box you see on the pavement along your road) - this can be a repair job or something daft an engineer, not necessarily from Virgin has done. If you ring up Virgin you can tell if it's a local issue first. If there's no report, it's something even more local, ie. your router or your wifi connection. I used to work for NTL/Telewest (Virgin), and have had them on/off for years (due to availability), and I'd go with them every single time possible for BB, as I do now, with Sky for my telly.
Strokes Posted 12 April 2014 Posted 12 April 2014 Fair point. I'd be lying if I said I knew all the ins and outs of the network. I agree with you on the TiVo front, I just didn't want to appear too biased since I work for one of the companies involved Me too
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