Pondering ditching sky for VM...

[dmchapman]

Hi all,

Currently got 10MB BB and a standard V box in the bedroom. For the main TV we have Sky and a TiVo. Phoneline is BT.

Sky box has started to die and lock up randomly... so, I need to sort that. Obvious option is to find another Sky box, but I'm pondering ditching Sky and the TiVo (*sob*) and getting a V+ to add to the mix...and then upgrade to the VM TiVo box ASAP (I assume there is still no clue as to when this might appear?)

Ideally, I'd go for V+ in the front room, with the existing V box upstairs. Both with TV XL. I'm also tempted to upgrade the BB to 50M - it's the upload speed that would be really useful more than anything. Not fussed about the phone, but if it means a better deal then I'd consider switching that to VM as well.

Looking the Virginmedia site, it appears that this would cost me 50 quid a month + 11 quid for a phoneline + whatever the second box costs (I thought i'd read it was 5 quid, but somewhere else read it was a 10 quid a month charge). I'm not interested in the Sports channels or the movie channels. If I switched phonelines, I'd certainly want Call-id which is an extra charge on Virgin IIRC...

So, what are my options? Any decent deals around? I'd rather not sign up for a 12 month lock in but if that will get me a much better deal then I would do this. Any advice on how to get a better deal from retentions or is this something they don't do anymore?

Of course, the alternative would be for me to jump to Sky+ HD but I really really hate the idea of paying extra for HD (yes, I know VM don't have much).

Blimey, that went on a bit, sorry! Interested to hear what people think. I'll probably give them a ring on monday to see what they offer - would rather ring with some knowledge :-)

Oh, one final question - is there anyway/anytime to get the UK call centres or is it just pot luck? Last couple of times I've rung them I've got indian (?) call centres and really struggled to understand :-(((

Cheers, Darren

[bbxxl]

I think you have to sign an initial 12 month contract - they are not going to install it without some sort of tie in.
The second bog cost £10/month on M and L but £5 on XL
I have 2 V+ boxes XL TV, 50Meg BB and basic telephone (free w/e and eve) and caller display (yes, annoyingly it is a paid for extra) and pay £68/month
The UK call centres (Glasgow?) are, in my experience, a lot better but I think it's just pot luck.
Make sure you find out the cost of equipment and connection charge as well, upgrades to 50Meg cost for a call out and connection but if you are having the whole lot done in one time it might be different, there is talk of upload speeds being increased sometime this year, they are trialling 5Meg but no news of when it will be rolled out.
Cable BB is faster than Sky - 20 Meg is 20 Meg and 50 Meg is 50 Meg in my experience.
Sky's CS is very good whereas Virgin's can be , how shall I put this, variable.
When there are no problems there is very little to chose between the two on TV and Telephone (you know Sky has more HD Channels but V+ you can record/watch more channels at a time) one thing Virgin don't make a lot of is the catchup TV and TV on demand which I was pleasantly surprised by. Virgin Internet speed is great.
Good luck and have fun

[m419]

If you add TV they will give you some sort of offer, but if you accept, they will lock you in for 12 months, however, this tie allows you to remove individual services, as long as you keep one service they won't charge you early termination fees. Thats the contract i'm tied into.

[Toto]

Originally Posted by m419

If you add TV they will give you some sort of offer, but if you accept, they will lock you in for 12 months, however, this tie allows you to remove individual services, as long as you keep one service they won't charge you early termination fees. Thats the contract i'm tied into.

I think you will find that is not the case. A new customer will be tied in to a 12 month contract for all the services they sign up for, early termination fees will apply if they chose to cancel part or all of the service after the first 30 days.

[dmchapman]

Originally Posted by bbxxl

I think you have to sign an initial 12 month contract - they are not going to install it without some sort of tie in.
The second bog cost £10/month on M and L but £5 on XL

Ahha, that's where I got the 10/5 difference from. I thought I'd read it somewhere. That makes upgrading from L to XL a no brainer then. With the second box and the V+ that "saves" a tenner a month.

Any ideas if they are likely to be able to do a deal on the installation cost? I see they offer a couple of months free to new customers, if they are going to tie me in for 12 months like a new customer I'll be aiming for something like that at least.

I have 2 V+ boxes XL TV, 50Meg BB and basic telephone (free w/e and eve) and caller display (yes, annoyingly it is a paid for extra) and pay £68/month
The UK call centres (Glasgow?) are, in my experience, a lot better but I think it's just pot luck.

Yep, I've been with them since it was C&W, through NTL and now with Virgin. Had analogue TV for a bit (awful) and then BB since the 600k service. Glasgow CS is excellent, as it the support on the newsgroups and twitter. Offshore....hmmmm....less good

Make sure you find out the cost of equipment and connection charge as well, upgrades to 50Meg cost for a call out and connection but if you are having the whole lot done in one time it might be different, there is talk of upload speeds being increased sometime this year, they are trialling 5Meg but no news of when it will be rolled out.
Cable BB is faster than Sky - 20 Meg is 20 Meg and 50 Meg is 50 Meg in my experience.

Yep, I've had 20Meg and it was excellent. Currently on 10 but really want the upload speed so I'm thinking of spending the tenner a month I'll save on the TiVo sub to fund the upgrade :-)

Sky's CS is very good whereas Virgin's can be , how shall I put this, variable.

I've had hassle with Sky support as well tbh. And they constantly seem to want me to upgrade to movies or sport (and sod paying extra for HD. I'd rather go without -it's not *that* much better on my 32" screen).

I'm happy to pay a little extra just to avoid Sky tbh - I hate them as a company :-(

When there are no problems there is very little to chose between the two on TV and Telephone (you know Sky has more HD Channels but V+ you can record/watch more channels at a time) one thing Virgin don't make a lot of is the catchup TV and TV on demand which I was pleasantly surprised by. Virgin Internet speed is great.
Good luck and have fun

Yep, catch up and On demand is a big bonus, and something we use a fair bit already. This is the big win for us. Surprised Virgin don't make more of it - plenty of people I know didn't even know it existed on their V boxes!

Will give them a ring tomorrow and see what they say,

Cheers,

Darren

[Joedm45]

Originally Posted by dmchapman

Obvious option is to find another Sky box, but I'm pondering ditching Sky and the TiVo (*sob*) and getting a V+ to add to the mix...and then upgrade to the VM TiVo box ASAP (I assume there is still no clue as to when this might appear?)

AFAIK there is still no date on the TiVo box but don't assume that when it comes out you can just ring up and get one, VM do not work like that unfortunately.

My guess is 'new customers only' or 'whatever the engineer has in his van' if you need to replace a faulty V+

[dmchapman]

Originally Posted by Joedm45

AFAIK there is still no date on the TiVo box but don't assume that when it comes out you can just ring up and get one, VM do not work like that unfortunately.

My guess is 'new customers only' or 'whatever the engineer has in his van' if you need to replace a faulty V+

I'm hoping the TiVo box (assuming it's a real "full fat" TiVo experience) will be a premium service. As a user of a series 1 TiVo for (gulp) over 10 years (blimey, is it really that long!) I'd certainly pay a few hundred quid for modern one.

I wouldn't have thought TiVo would want them just being shipped as replacement V+ boxes - wouldn't do much for their brand awareness to confuse things like that. Mind you, their orginal marketing was abysmal but that was more Thomson than TiVo I suspect.

[jtaylor06]

AFAIK, TV should be free for 2 months if starting a new contract so this is something that will be nice looking on the bill :P

Quote from Virgin Media (same page as bundle builder)

First 2 months free offer (triple bundles): Offer ends 31/01/10. Available to new customers (subject to status and credit checks). You will receive the first 2 months of your TV, broadband and call package free via credit applied to your bill . Only available when taking at least the following minimum bundle: TV size: M+, broadband size: L (up to 10Mb) and phone size: M (Talk Weekends) at £19.50, when you take a Virgin phone line at £11 per month. During the first 2 monthsyou will be charged for phone line rental (£11 a month) plus any calls outside of your call package, on-demand purchases and service upgrades. Standard prices apply thereafter.

This bundle builder should give you an idea, but obviously you will have to add on £5/£10 in your head for the price of the 2nd box.

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html...e-builder.html

Also, you will be very happy with On-Demand especially if you forget to record programs with your V+, sometimes the programs are added 1 or 2 hours after they've been on air.

If your a music lover, you will love music on demand - lots to choose from (Over 1000)
As someone above said, 3 tuners is great, record 2 while watching a third.

1 and half hour Pause TV and rewind.

TiVo is to look forward to, but limited details on how it will be at the moment.

As far as CS, you always have this forum to look to, most stuff is self-resolved with a bit of guidance off here, but Virgin also support via Twitter if you can't be bothered with phone.

If you do ring up and ask for a deal, try haggling

Good luck!

[dmchapman]

Originally Posted by jtaylor06

AFAIK, TV should be free for 2 months if starting a new contract so this is something that will be nice looking on the bill :P

Bah, just reading the small print and noticed "First 2 months free offer: offer ends 31/01/10."

Typical

Oh well, maybe there will be something new in the morning - do these offers normally just carry on?

[Tony.]

Originally Posted by jtaylor06

AFAIK, TV should be free for 2 months if starting a new contract so this is something that will be nice looking on the bill

That is only for NEW CUSTOMERS, existing customers don't get free months

[dmchapman]

Originally Posted by Tony.

That is only for NEW CUSTOMERS, existing customers don't get free months

not quite true. Existing customers get

"SERVICES AVAILABLE IN VIRGIN MEDIA CABLED STREETS ONLY. First 2 months free offer: offer ends 31/01/10. Available to existing TV customers (excluding current XL TV customers) upgrading to XL TV (subject to status and credit checks). You will receive a discount via a credit applied to your bill equivalent to the difference in price between your current TV package and XL TV for the first 2 months. Standard XL TV prices apply thereafter."


So only the difference but still an offer. Annoying they don't offer anything comparable to the new customers offers - but I guess that's no unusual :-(

[dmchapman]

Ok, thanks all for the feedback. I've kicked it all off this afternoon and have an install date of 17th Feb.

First call went to India - got rather confusing and ended up with a "special deal" that was 70 quid a month with XL upgrade free for a couple of months (but only the uplift - not free tv for 2 months). install of 75 quid for the V+, and 20 quid for the 50Mbit BB.

After 5 attempts at my postcode and 4 attempts at my phone number I wasn't completely convinced they had got the details correct (and it seemed too expensive a month) so I said I'd think about it.

10 mins later I rang back on the customer service number and hit the option "I'm thinking of leaving Virginmedia". Got answered by Michelle who (apart from having a bad day and apologising for being ex-blonde!) was *Excellent* and not offshore.

V+ XL, old box upstairs, 50Meg BB with the free router (I assume this isn't a true 5GHz N router? Anyone know what model?), phoneline for a shade over 60 quid a month, and both installs for 49.99.

Sure, I might have been able to get a cheaper deal if I'd hassled but I'm happy with that price (assuming it all happens and I've not been fed rubbish!).

New 12 month contract though (not surprised really) - although she did say I'm free to alter the package at anytime within that 12 months - is that really true?

Cheers all,

Darren

[jtaylor06]

Originally Posted by dmchapman

Ok, thanks all for the feedback. I've kicked
New 12 month contract though (not surprised really) - although she did say I'm free to alter the package at anytime within that 12 months - is that really true?

Yes, as on the 'My Virgin Media' on site it offers to upgrade your broadband. TV and Phone can be upgraded too over the phone.