Im moving home soon and after speaking with BT they told me there would be a 125 quid charge for activating the new house as the existing owners have had another provider for some time and as such it needs an engineer. I thought this was strange as the current owner had a phone so i asked them why BT were telling me they needed an engineer.
It turns out that they have Virgin for phone and Broadband services and dont have BT. This kind of scuppered my plans for the full Sky service (TV, SKy Talk Phone and Sky Broadband) but i thought i would just go with Virgin for the BB and the Phone seeing as the equipment was already there and they could get me running on day 1. (Sky TV was going with me though as they already have a dish up.)
Ok, i thought lets see what Virgin offer, so i phone up and get told that they can do 4mb BB and phone (Evening and Weekend call free package) for 25 quid or 20mb BB and phone (Evening and Weekend call free package) for 30 quid (inlcuding free TV which apparently the 4mb package did not).
I asked if i could remove the TV part from the 30 quid package as i wouldnt be needing it, "no" was the (polite) answer, however i was told i didnt need to actually use it, it was essentially a freebie apparently. There was also a mention of a one off 30 quid install price which he sounded like he would drop as i asked why i would need an engineer as there is already a line installed.
But im still thinking, BT line rental 11 quid a month, (albeit with 125 quid install charge) and then SKy BB Max for a further 10 quid a month (16 meg) and then Sky Talk which gives Unlimited calls at anytime to any uk landline AND to 10 international destinations for an extra 5 quid a month - total of 26 quid a month compared with the 30 quid package here.
Cheaper in the long run, but more expensive in the short term.
The other things that were running through my head were that Virgin could, apparently, have me up and running on day one when i move in. BT could also (for the phone), but Sky BB would take - well - they say 5 days but....
However, on balance, BT were cheaper and the call package from Sky was better, also with Virgin being Traffic shaped and Proxied i decided to go with the BT / Sky package again and pay the install charge for the long term gain.
So i phoned up BT to arrange and they let me know that they have an offer on at the moment where if I agrreed to take 18 Month line rental fromthem they would half the install charge to 62 quid - Deal!
So all in, VM just lost a potential customer due to their over-expensive BB offering and no "mid tier" package.
Not exactly great competition if they cant provide a cheaper service when a competitior is charging a big install charge.
