Cable Forum - View Single Post

boragthung · 26-04-2012, 19:19

This is quite a long post, sorry.

I have been with NTL - VM for 11 years now. I have always had the same 'size' since then which is basic Phone, L BB and XL TV. My original BB was 600Kb which was then upped to 2Mb then 4Mb and currently 10Mb. I had a standard Pace box originally which was swapped for a standard Samsung when problems developed. I have only ever had 1 box at a time and currently have the SA V+.

Probably about 5 years ago when adsl started to kick in and prices were dropping and NTL were changing package names, prices, etc I decided to ring up retentions. I had been paying around £58 /month for a long time and it was becoming apparent that I was paying over the odds as things did not seem to be adding up any more and I was struggling to pay.

At the time I remember my BB was £25 on its own and then TV and rental was added to that. One of my bugbears was that I hardly use the phone and it is only really there for occasional quick calls, emergencies and if I need to ring in sick to work. With BT I was on their light user tariff - this meant at the time for every 10p call I didn't make I would get a refund of about 12p (up to a quarterly limit of some amount), which meant with virtually no calls I would only pay a small rental. So I used this fact to enquire if NTL had a low user tariff similar - they didn't.

What I got through negotiation was a restructuring of my bill and I think basically I had been paying old prices for something that had now dropped in price but had not actually automatically received this price drop myself, which is a disgusting way to treat customers. I was told I would be given a £8.50 discount on phone for life (really I said, yes they said) as they had checked my usage and agreed I hardly used the phone.

With my new bills, instead of simply listing a bill with this costs this, that costs that and this is the total they had this convoluted way of adding in old prices then adjusting this by a magic 'loyalty' number to give the amount you should be paying. Another crazy way of doing things.

I cannot remember the precise amount but the combination of price adjustment from old to new and then my £8.50 'for life' discount dropped my total bill (at that time) to around the £38 -ish mark. A significant drop and an indication just how much I had been overcharged. I think what had happened was the BB had changed to £25 inclusive of rental so I had effectively been paying that rental amount twice for some time. I also got the std box swapped for a V+ box. I then started ebilling as well which at that time meant a discount of £1.

There have been quite a few increases since. One despicable one is the eBilling. This discount was supposed to change to £1.50 (my bills always stated £1 though). Then they changed things - prices include eBilling and paper Bills will be charged £1.50 extra. So what they did here was a back door rise by eliminating the discount, while at the same time also increasing TV and rental costs. Not sure what the current situation is with paper bills but those people are certainly being hammered.

Anyway to make a long story a bit longer and get a bit more to the point of my post, I have been looking at these latest 'bundles'. The Premiere one for around £59 gives 60 Mb BB, Tivo, extra box, TV XL and Phone.

I currently have 10 Mb BB (MY VM page says this will be doubled to 20 Mb after July), basic (weekend) phone and XL TV with one SA V+ box. My costs for this are £32.50 + £13.90 = £46.40. The only way I can compare costs is to this breakdown from the VM pages: BB 30 £14.50, Phone £13.90, TV £26.50 giving total of £54.90. This happens to tally with my £8.50 discount (which I honestly thought had been completely eroded by price increases). So I am getting 10 Mb instread of 30 Mb I conclude.

My current modem is the NTL 250 (upgraded from the original Terajet). I have my own 'N' Router but its ethernet is only 10/100 rather than gigabit. My main computer is hardwired along with Blu ray with the wireless for everything else. Actually I have a separate gigabit NIC in this PC connecting to a gigbit switch and a gigabit NAS to that as well before connecting the switch to the router.

So firstly my free upgrade - will thiis only be to 20 or will it actually be 30? Will this mean a Superhub being sent to me? What I have gathered with the Superhub is it rubbish for wireless which is needed at the other end of the house upstairs wihich works well with my own router. I need hardwired downstairs next to the inlet. Putting SH into modem mode to use my router disables the extra gigabit ports on the SH which means I would still neeed to use my gigabit switch for NAS and my PC for transfers. I don't have enough plug sockets for this - currently use 16 as it is with all my AV stuff.

Looking at costs for what you get:
My current !0 Mb, XL TV, V+, Phone = £46.40 with my 'life discount'. This would be £54.90 full whack but with 30Mb not 10 Mb.

The Premiere is £58.90 for 60 Mb, XL TV, Tivo, Vbox, Phone. That's £4 difference for extra 30 Mb speed and Tivo compared to full whack. You can get 100 Mb instead for £66.15

My VM tells me I can do these upgrades: upgrade to 60 mb from £5, upgrade to Tivo from £11.50.

Why does it say 'from'? Also if you add it up it I would pay 46.40 + 5 + 11.50 = £62.90 with my life discount or comparing full whack 62.90+ 8.50 = £71.40. These figures just don't add up comparing to the £58.90 for this Premiere package or £66.15 with Prem 100.

I would be interested in the Premiere package but I don't want to lose my discount. I cannot afford installation costs either. I currently have my Brother and his Fiance living with me but they marry in 4 months and will be looking at moving into their own home so the extra box is only really useful until such time as they leave then I will be on my own again and I will again be on the bread line.

I am concerned at the issues with the SH and the Tivo. To my mind all the Tivo really means to me is bigger capacity hard drive - the rest just seem gimmicks you pay for that don't sound like they work 100%. You also lose the background archive to DVD recorder.

Does it sound like I should be getting more for my money or paying less for what I get? Could I ring up make sure I keep my life discount and negotiate some kind of upgrade?

Premiere 58.90 less 8.50 = £51.40 with Tivo. Tivo costs 5 + 6.50 = 11.50 as extra box. So should not having Tivo and keeping my V+ box only, uprading to 60 Mb really have me paying 58.90 - 11.50 = 47.40 then less my life discount 8.50 = £38.90?

Can you see how the figures for their products are all over the place? I am getting more flumaxed the more I add things up. Are we all being ripped off (well that's a stupid question LOL)?

26-04-2012, 19:19	#215
boragthung Inactive Join Date: Dec 2006 Posts: 47	Re: Virgin Media revamps its bundles This is quite a long post, sorry. I have been with NTL - VM for 11 years now. I have always had the same 'size' since then which is basic Phone, L BB and XL TV. My original BB was 600Kb which was then upped to 2Mb then 4Mb and currently 10Mb. I had a standard Pace box originally which was swapped for a standard Samsung when problems developed. I have only ever had 1 box at a time and currently have the SA V+. Probably about 5 years ago when adsl started to kick in and prices were dropping and NTL were changing package names, prices, etc I decided to ring up retentions. I had been paying around £58 /month for a long time and it was becoming apparent that I was paying over the odds as things did not seem to be adding up any more and I was struggling to pay. At the time I remember my BB was £25 on its own and then TV and rental was added to that. One of my bugbears was that I hardly use the phone and it is only really there for occasional quick calls, emergencies and if I need to ring in sick to work. With BT I was on their light user tariff - this meant at the time for every 10p call I didn't make I would get a refund of about 12p (up to a quarterly limit of some amount), which meant with virtually no calls I would only pay a small rental. So I used this fact to enquire if NTL had a low user tariff similar - they didn't. What I got through negotiation was a restructuring of my bill and I think basically I had been paying old prices for something that had now dropped in price but had not actually automatically received this price drop myself, which is a disgusting way to treat customers. I was told I would be given a £8.50 discount on phone for life (really I said, yes they said) as they had checked my usage and agreed I hardly used the phone. With my new bills, instead of simply listing a bill with this costs this, that costs that and this is the total they had this convoluted way of adding in old prices then adjusting this by a magic 'loyalty' number to give the amount you should be paying. Another crazy way of doing things. I cannot remember the precise amount but the combination of price adjustment from old to new and then my £8.50 'for life' discount dropped my total bill (at that time) to around the £38 -ish mark. A significant drop and an indication just how much I had been overcharged. I think what had happened was the BB had changed to £25 inclusive of rental so I had effectively been paying that rental amount twice for some time. I also got the std box swapped for a V+ box. I then started ebilling as well which at that time meant a discount of £1. There have been quite a few increases since. One despicable one is the eBilling. This discount was supposed to change to £1.50 (my bills always stated £1 though). Then they changed things - prices include eBilling and paper Bills will be charged £1.50 extra. So what they did here was a back door rise by eliminating the discount, while at the same time also increasing TV and rental costs. Not sure what the current situation is with paper bills but those people are certainly being hammered. Anyway to make a long story a bit longer and get a bit more to the point of my post, I have been looking at these latest 'bundles'. The Premiere one for around £59 gives 60 Mb BB, Tivo, extra box, TV XL and Phone. I currently have 10 Mb BB (MY VM page says this will be doubled to 20 Mb after July), basic (weekend) phone and XL TV with one SA V+ box. My costs for this are £32.50 + £13.90 = £46.40. The only way I can compare costs is to this breakdown from the VM pages: BB 30 £14.50, Phone £13.90, TV £26.50 giving total of £54.90. This happens to tally with my £8.50 discount (which I honestly thought had been completely eroded by price increases). So I am getting 10 Mb instread of 30 Mb I conclude. My current modem is the NTL 250 (upgraded from the original Terajet). I have my own 'N' Router but its ethernet is only 10/100 rather than gigabit. My main computer is hardwired along with Blu ray with the wireless for everything else. Actually I have a separate gigabit NIC in this PC connecting to a gigbit switch and a gigabit NAS to that as well before connecting the switch to the router. So firstly my free upgrade - will thiis only be to 20 or will it actually be 30? Will this mean a Superhub being sent to me? What I have gathered with the Superhub is it rubbish for wireless which is needed at the other end of the house upstairs wihich works well with my own router. I need hardwired downstairs next to the inlet. Putting SH into modem mode to use my router disables the extra gigabit ports on the SH which means I would still neeed to use my gigabit switch for NAS and my PC for transfers. I don't have enough plug sockets for this - currently use 16 as it is with all my AV stuff. Looking at costs for what you get: My current !0 Mb, XL TV, V+, Phone = £46.40 with my 'life discount'. This would be £54.90 full whack but with 30Mb not 10 Mb. The Premiere is £58.90 for 60 Mb, XL TV, Tivo, Vbox, Phone. That's £4 difference for extra 30 Mb speed and Tivo compared to full whack. You can get 100 Mb instead for £66.15 My VM tells me I can do these upgrades: upgrade to 60 mb from £5, upgrade to Tivo from £11.50. Why does it say 'from'? Also if you add it up it I would pay 46.40 + 5 + 11.50 = £62.90 with my life discount or comparing full whack 62.90+ 8.50 = £71.40. These figures just don't add up comparing to the £58.90 for this Premiere package or £66.15 with Prem 100. I would be interested in the Premiere package but I don't want to lose my discount. I cannot afford installation costs either. I currently have my Brother and his Fiance living with me but they marry in 4 months and will be looking at moving into their own home so the extra box is only really useful until such time as they leave then I will be on my own again and I will again be on the bread line. I am concerned at the issues with the SH and the Tivo. To my mind all the Tivo really means to me is bigger capacity hard drive - the rest just seem gimmicks you pay for that don't sound like they work 100%. You also lose the background archive to DVD recorder. Does it sound like I should be getting more for my money or paying less for what I get? Could I ring up make sure I keep my life discount and negotiate some kind of upgrade? Premiere 58.90 less 8.50 = £51.40 with Tivo. Tivo costs 5 + 6.50 = 11.50 as extra box. So should not having Tivo and keeping my V+ box only, uprading to 60 Mb really have me paying 58.90 - 11.50 = 47.40 then less my life discount 8.50 = £38.90? Can you see how the figures for their products are all over the place? I am getting more flumaxed the more I add things up. Are we all being ripped off (well that's a stupid question LOL)?