Re: More price rises
 

I have a solution - they can pay! :D

I have a BT line and have been offered Infinity many times but have always decided to stay with VM. Getting on for £1000 pa is no joke though so I feel the winds of change... ;)

Re: More price rises
 

Oh I wish it were that simple!

Re: More price rises
 

Just signed up for Sky Q, telephone and internet. Will use the price rise as my get out but the main reason is the dire performance of the TiVo. VM accepted there was an issue and posted on their forum on 2 Sept - and no update since which I think is a bit poor.

Will (may) miss the internet speed but looking forward to the improved upload. Losing 4 months of advanced line rental but cutting back on legal advice about obscure ways to get out of the contract will soon cover that loss ;).

Cheers

Grim

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You won't really miss the speed. I went from 150Mb to sky fibre 38 a couple of weeks ago and its still fast enough.

You'll love the speed of the Q box though.

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Youd be mad not to go for the sky q deal, especially since virgin are letting you go due to the price increase

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Couldn't agree more we have Sky Fibre 38mb and find it more than enough for our use , it seems to work perfect with Netflix and Amazon 4K and the Sky Q 4K content is generally available to play within seconds.

I suppose it depends on the size of your family but for our family it's more than enough and pretty good value.

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My sky install date is tomorrow. Everything was going smoothly until sky rang this morning saying openreach have notified them they are cancelling the visit due to detecting a previously active line at the address and they will activate remotely. I wanted them to move my master socket as it's in a room that my wife used for her business and is not suitable to use for the hub/phone (now baby's bedroom). Bet I'm going to have to fork out for a visit myself now.

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Surely a simple telephone extention lead would be a much cheaper option? They're widely available from places like Argos,Ebay,Amazon etc.

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That might affect the speed of the BB.

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Never thought of that.

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In my area in the local paper ex BT engineers often advertise their services in the classifieds and will relocate a phone socket for £25approx dont know if thats an option where you live.

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We have Tivo, 200mb BB (I never seem to get more than about 40mb), TV XL and Talk Unlimited now costing us around £80 pm. I also have a BT phone line which could be used for another BB supplier but what scope is there for saving some money by changing/reducing some of the above services and/or getting my BB elsewhere?

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Why do you have a duplicate landlines?

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Well all my sky q services are up and running. It's very impressive. Streets ahead of the TiVo. Also, even though my download speed is about 8 times slower, web browsing is noticeably quicker. Almost instant on most pages. The 4K content is better than I imagined. Be a shame to probably have to give it up in a year's time unless I can cut another deal.

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It's for business.

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I cant help unless you explain your situation better, sorry

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I have a friend in a similar situation - his employer pays for BT broadband and line rental on a BT line whilst his personal services come from VM. His employer wants the BT line just used for work purposes for security reasons - it's a bank.

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That may be the situation but Osem mentioned he can use the landline for broadband so that would suggest it doesnt have broadband on it already, also it may be possible Osem pays for the line himself as he wants a second phone number for business which means he can switch the line to another provider. We also dont know if Osem can use the line for personal calls meaning there may be no need for a personal landline from another provider.

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Yes, I am self employed and in terms of calls want to keep my BT line purely for business for now but would consider getting BB via it if it met our needs.

Our family situation is likely to change in the next couple of years, however, so before I decide what else I might need to do, I want to find out what my options are for reducing my current package cost with VM. If there's little scope for that, then I might just get shot of the whole lot bar the phone, rely on Freeview and get my BB elsewhere. I'd rather not lose the VM landline for now for various reasons.

Re: More price rises
 

Basically your paying £100+ for your virgin service and extra landline.

If you could go to freeview, drop your full virgin service including the landline and continue with your business line. (If your making outgoing calls you can just withhold your number) BT have good deals

https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/co...ls_and_offers/

You can get 52mb Broadband, Line rental and unlimited landline calls for £37.50 a month. There is a £49.99 instalation fee but you get £100 credit.

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Sounds interesting thanks. We'll be having a family discussion shortly.

I'd prefer to keep the two landlines in an ideal world but if we're going to be moving in the next year or two anyway, they'll have to change anyway.

I may be wrong but I think arguing the toss with VM is unlikely to result in much change from where we are.

Re: More price rises
 

Have you looked into VOIP services such as Vonage or Sipgate? You could port one of your numbers (or maybe both if you got a new line installed) and only pay one line rental - or just take VM broadband and no line rental at all. Plus you wouldn't have to worry about losing your numbers when you move

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That's it, 30 days notice given.

Cheers

Grim

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Where you moving to?

Re: More price rises
 

Going over to the dark side - time to give Sky Q a try. The final straw was the just under 2 mins from pressing the TV button to go from My Shows to TV - we'd been away so the box hadn't done anything for 4 days. Add this to the multi-room streaming issues we're having and the gradual decline in peak time broadband speeds over the last 12 months and it seems we've little to loose.

The price rise just gave the chance to jump ship a few months before the end of the contract. It is a shame as we've been customers for some years and have been involved in quite a few new hardware trials along the way.

Oh and with the deals Sky are offering you need your head feeling if you don't consider your options.

Cheers

Grim

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Vodafone offers up to 76 Mbs incl line rental for £28pm and up to 38 Mbs incl line rental for £25pm. Useful amunition in negotiations even if you don't move to them. https://www.vodafone.co.uk/broadband.../lzvnylnty/lcc

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There is no line rental on Vodafone. You are paying for the BB only.

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Please dont fall for that

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I think it's accurate to say that it's included in the prices I have quoted.

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How is it accurate to say that? You only pay for the broadband. Only the ADSL has a line rental charge.

---------- Post added at 09:12 ---------- Previous post was at 09:11 ----------

Fall for what exactly?

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Your paying an inflated broadband price to cover the landline. Vodafone are advertising like they are doing us a favour by having no landlines charges

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Yes that is the way l see it as well.

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Well it is still cheaper than most and its working as they are getting a lot of new customers from it.

As they were charging £20 for 38 and £25 for 76 with £18 line rental or now £25 or £22 if existing customer then £28 76 it's not really inflated at all.

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So now they charge the same as other providers like talktalk

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Don't you mean "provider"? I don't think any other providers are as cheap as TalkTalk and Vodafone are for fibre.

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Depends if you take account of introductory offers and bundles.

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Been looking around at alternative suppliers (e.g. BT) and what's available here in theory and in practice are very different so that's altered the equation a little. I can get their ordinary BB but Infinity is at full cabinet capacity right now and who knows how long that'll be the case. :confused:

If I ditched Tivo/TV XL (if that's possible) I don't suppose that'd make much of a difference in our monthly bill would it? We'd be left with just phone and BB in that event.

---------- Post added at 18:43 ---------- Previous post was at 18:26 ----------

Sorry I didn't see this earlier. I'm not sure what any of this means, sorry. I'd certainly want to keep our existing numbers if we were to move but no idea if that's possible.

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VOIP services essentially deliver telephony via your broadband connection. You can connect your existing handset into an adapter box which then connects via ethernet to your modem/router. Once you've ported your number to a VOIP provider, you could theoretically connect your phone anywhere in the world and use the same number - so even if you moved to a different area code it would make no difference to your number.

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Now I see. Thanks. :tu:

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got my email going up £3.49 here

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I have a contract for 12 months. So will it effect me.

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yes, but VM have broken your contract so you can tell them to do one ;)

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They are all pretty cheap when you get a new customer offer

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If this causes a problem just switch on the (currently unofficial but working) powerline function on all devices.

---------- Post added at 23:21 ---------- Previous post was at 23:16 ----------

If this year is like next year then you will get very good deals as long as you phone to renew early i.e. between mid-August and mid-September.

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I really don't expect Sky to offer great deals for customers with Sky Q as they own the kit and could just take it away.

Time will tell i guess.

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I'm paying £45 odd just for Phoneline and 70MB internet. Will be £49 when it goes Up in Nov.
Rather STEEP just for those two. I don't watch TV.
Been with ntlworld/Virgin since it was first installed in Townhill. Now Getting Fed Up of these price increases...

Re: More price rises
 

Last year lots of people got Free TV (Family Pack/Box Sets) with phone and broadband deals and lots of them got extended for 10m this year so they'll be looking at paid subscriptions next year.

I'd suspect the drive will be towards good deals to retain people who joined this year to similar 10m deals next year, then full price the following year.

Most Sky Q customers aren't joining on these big discounts. They are using these deals to get people out there promoting how good the Sky Q service is and based on this thread, it's working very well!

Re: More price rises
 

Just give them a ring, when i called they offered me the 200mb gamer bb that has 20mb upload for £43 so no way i'd be paying what you're paying for 70mb. I ended up just sticking with 100mb, phone and TV for £38 though.

Re: More price rises
 

Wife got a deal from them although over the phone they told her £62 for 6 months followed by £65 for the last 6 months.

However the contract came through email yesterday and it says £60.99 for 6 months followed by £69.99 for the last 6 months so watch out for that.

Re: More price rises
 

In the Ofcom complaints figures Sky is the least complained per 100,000 customers for tv , broadband and land line with VM in second place , it doesn't make good reading for BT.
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/news/2016/...s-data-sept16/

Re: More price rises
 

Agreed and I'm very surprised by Plusnet's poor performance. The consolation for BT is that EE mobile comes out relatively well.

Meanwhile
 

http://newsthump.com/2016/09/30/host...edia-contract/

---------- Post added at 16:09 ---------- Previous post was at 14:13 ----------

Telecoms companies are complaining about a tax on speed. The rates valuation is currently set to penalise them for investing in broadband. BT has said its business rate bill would jump from £165m to £743m.
“It is like a speeding fine for the internet economy,” said Julian David, head of the industry body Tech UK. “It seems to be based on the idea that if you improve your infrastructure, then you must have a higher valuation [for business rates purposes].”
https://www.ft.com/content/0ccc9750-...c-debbef66f80e (registration needed)

Re: More price rises
 

Got my letter today, am I last?

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...., nope still waiting.

Re: More price rises
 

By switching to BT I can save £293.88 / £24.49 a month

Re: More price rises
 

That is a customers prerogative but BT are certainly not for us l can assure you.

Re: More price rises
 

Remember to use topcashback

Re: More price rises
 

Not just VM and Apple with price rises. Half of TalkTalk's customers look like they'll be forking out more soon. https://www.theguardian.com/money/20...all-in-pricing

Re: More price rises
 

And no doubt others will follow pretty quickly in raising their prices.

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Well done Sherlock

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Well I got my price rise letter today.....two weeks after my account was closed!

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Sadly my old friend Watson had a word in my ear earlier old boy.;)

Re: More price rises
 

Spoke too soon yesterday, got the letter today. Not even a month's notice...

Re: More price rises
 

ISPs buy equipment in US Dollars while we pay them in Pounds. As they purchase new equipment at the higher rates their costs will rise. This impacts VM more than most as they buy more equipment than most.

TalkTalk lease equipment and depending who they are leasing from may be paying in USD, or their lease costs have gone up as the kit is priced in USD.

Add that to ongoing usage increases and the inability to hide costs in line rental and I'm sure we'll see more increases.

Re: More price rises
 

Still not got mine and then will do the call with my list of gripes.
To raise the price when so much has gone downhill is what I have an issue with.
If it was the same service as this time last year I would have taken it on the chin as inflation etc but not when it is so much worse in my case.

Re: More price rises
 

Loads more channels including the much-requested Universal HD, extra apps like Hayu which is proving popular, more on-demand content including the biggest UKTV library and exclusive shows from Starz, investment in a new fast 4K box...all improvements. Just phone up and cut a deal.

Re: More price rises
 

I'm not one to complain but Virgin are really starting to push me now. I called up a month ago to negotiate deals for me and another for a member of the family and was told on both occasions the new deal would include the price increase. Both of us had the letter today so I thought I'd call up just to be safe and they are now claiming there is no record of this and I will see an increase of £3.50....

Re: More price rises
 

They're very good at making promise they don't keep. The trouble is often the guys on the phone will say almost anything to get you to agree to something.

Re: More price rises
 

And the others don't do the same?.

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This is true and while I do agree with Denphone in that they all do it, what was really pushing my buttons was how the guy on the phone today just kept repeating that every customer will have an increase of £3.50. Yes I understand that, but my squabble is with the fake promises right now, not the increase. I've used Virgin for years (since they were Cabletel) via my parents and not at my own home but this year certainly hasn't been one of their best in my opinion.

Re: More price rises
 

Yes that's true but does it make it right?

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No it certainly does not make it right so its up to the customer to barter for the best deal for themselves and their family IMO.

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Really annoying, I would change providers in such a situation. Did they give you any written confirmation that your price would not rise?

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That's certainly true. I rang retentions yesterday and spoke to a nice lady. I told her that I was concerned about the amount I was paying, and I was thinking about going to Sky. She told me there were some good offers at the moment. For the Full House package which I'm on plus HD channels., she offered me a reduction from £128 to £95 for 9 months then returning to normal price for the remaining three months. I of course accepted this good offer, but it got me thinking - why do some people ring retentions and have no luck at all in getting any reductions at all. Is it attitude, or are they just unlucky.

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Variety of reasons, may they are are on a good deal already or vastly overpaying (£128 seems a lot). Are they prepared to enter into a new contract ? Never harms to be nice and reasonable but firm. It can depend on who you get too. Ring back another day if you don't get what you want.

They keep changing prices/bundles/discounts so often its difficult to determine if you're on a good deal (deliberate i'm sure). e.g. i'm getting my extra box free as part of the deal when upgrading to Tivo. This was dependent on being on the XL tv pack. Don't want XL (full house) any longer but I'll lose the extra box discount if I downgraded.... Also I'm on 150MB BB speed - this doesn't appear as a package on their ordering page. All this must confuse VM aswell, they've made it so complicated.

Re: More price rises
 

your taking the proverbial

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No matter what VM say. It used to be a company gave a decent service. No with the price increases, and no added NEW channels.

I don't think the company is worth it. You cannot keep putting up prices and still expect customers to keep paying it.

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Well I'm paying £138 for Full House TV plus 200meg BB. I've been meaning to phone for a while and with the latest price increase now is the time.

Re: More price rises
 

We already covered this before.

They do have a good service, its just expensive now and also there were new channels, just not to your liking.

Still I am happier, now I have Sky.

Re: More price rises
 

Unless you're a football club.

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I've just got a new deal from the big K one I was on last year...

100mb BB, XL TV and weekend calls £60.99 for 6 months £69.99 for the last 6 months.

However they have taken the 2nd box offline as they said it was part of my old package deal (standard hd box) so I'm guessing it doesn't come as part of the XL package but the package as a whole?

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I called VM today as my Sky sports speical was coming to an end. Currently playing £80 excluding line rental for Sky sports and movies, XL,vivid 200 and talk unlimited. Got the same package for £68, also paid my line rental up front £184 equates to £15.33. I am absolutely delighted, I have never not managed to get a good deal well done VM.

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15 months ago I negotiated 34 pounds for M TV with Tivo, 50 broadband and phone free at weekend. It was now going to be about 44 pounds.
I phoned retentions and was immediately offered the same package (including broadband remaining at the recently increased 70) for 35 pounds for 6 months then 38 pounds.
Only downside is a new 12 month contract.
Happy with that. Price decrease rather than increase. Only on the phone for about 3 minutes (plus 10 minutes to get through)

Re: More price rises
 

WARNING You won't stay on 70Mb. You will be down to 50Mb.

Re: More price rises
 

that's what happened to me. When I phoned to query I was told 70mb does not exist anymore.

Re: More price rises
 

I specifically asked if I would remain on 70. He said yes and wrote notes on my file. I shall wait and see

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Well after a couple of weeks I must say the sky w viewing experience is great. Missing the broadband though. Downloading games on PS4 is painful.

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Are you on WiFi? as the PS4 wireless is pretty poor. My X1 still downlods pretty fast on Sky Fibre.

Re: More price rises
 

I paid my line rental last January for the year, So can they put the price up before the year is up?

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No you've paid in advance thus avoiding any increase untill next January.

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they told my wife £62 for 6 months then £65 for the last 6 months on the phone.

But in the contract it was 60.99 for 6 months then £69.99 for 6 months so what is said and what you get are 2 different things

Re: More price rises
 

Thanks telegramsam

Re: More price rises
 

Anyone who is still considering their options in relation to the VM price rise, full Sky package with SkyQ, Sports and Movies from £30 per month via MSE (link below, scroll down to Sky section)

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/sho...ky-cheap-cable

Re: More price rises
 

I logged into my VM account and bottom right there is now a Chat with Agent box - I clicked on that, told the agent I wanted to leave due to the price increase, they immediately came back with a discount to wipe out the rise. I could probably have gone for more by submitting my notice, but that is sorted for now (hopefully) without changing any of my set-up and wiped out the rise.

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I've phoned a few times to reduce my bill but it seems that Virgin are not giving any deals,been with them since the Blueyonder days but loyalty doesn't mean anything these
Days

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Well listen watch with the live chat as I had issues with that, they messed up badly. In retentions they do treat me fair

200 my broadband
2 1tb tivo
Full house tv
Sky sports and movies all in HD
Talk more anytime
200 minutes to any 08 number like 0844,0871
Line rental

£95

Re: More price rises
 

That is a good deal but total overkill in my household.

I'm interested to see what happens when the original subscribers to Sky Q near the end of their initial contract.
You don't own the box so they could say it's full price now or offer a very small discount, like it or lump it.

Re: More price rises
 

That's exactly Sky's rationale for such deals, lose money for the first 12 months but make up for it in the following years. The barriers to substituting to a free TV service are now a lot higher as:
1) Sky own the equipment so will want it back; you can't just keep the box to receive FTA channels.
2) The fittings are Sky Q dedicated so you can't just buy a Freesat box and swap it for a Sky Q box.

Re: More price rises
 

We just had this months bill and it includes a 60p reduction in our loyalty discount that ends mid next month and says the bill is 45.53, but under that it says the balance to pay is 56.83, that extra money is not itemized but seems to count the £6 loyalty discount ending and the £3.49 price rise + even more with no explanations.

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I've now moved to Sky due to the price rises. I managed to get the 70% off Sky Box Sets offer back in September and had the install today.

So far, So good! :D:D:D

My only question is: When is the best time to cancel the direct debit to VM as I had the phone line switched over to Sky today as well as I'm keeping the same landline number I had with Virgin.