Should I switch from Sky to VM?

[Brydo666]

Interested in the thoughts of others here...

For the majority of my life I've lived in the sticks and had Sky, I've always stayed in a non-cable area and if I'm honest have had no problem with Sky HD services or BBI.

Earlier this year I moved closer to Glasgow city and brought my Sky services with me - which are now not tied to a contract. I recently discovered this is a cabled area and all my neighbours are using it, I thought they all used Freeview or some BT nonsense. I've got a friend whom works for VM and offered me a package with Tivo XL, 30MB BBI, Unlim Landline Phone, Additional HD Box with Free Install for £35 a month.

Was playing with a Tivo box at a friends and thought it was pretty cool, having the TV in our bedroom would also be handy also as I wasn't paying £10 extra to Sky and I couldn't be doing with running a wire in myself.

Does this sound like a good deal with VM? I priced it up online and it came to £70ish a month - I'll save £15 over my current package with Sky and have the channels I currently watch in HD with Sky in both the living room and bedroom. My neighbours each highly recommend it also.

[flumperino]

That's a fantastic deal if you can get it - you may want to check whether it is a '£35 for 3 months, then £x per month' deal.

In my opinion, VM is far superior to Sky in almost every way.

[Brydo666]

Sounds good, it's 100% £35 a month - not discounted for a set period of time or anything.

I'll need to wait until he is back at work next week to kick of the process, he can't apply the discount if I start the process myself.

[sonysteve]

Get it , it's a bargin at that price.

[Over Carl]

I would speak to any neighbours who have the service to discuss reliablility.

I used to be on virgin 10mb, but towards the end I was getting massive latency now and then (iirc 2000-3000ms), and the line keps going down every few weeks - sometimes for a few days at a time. Family next door had the same grief.

We never had any headache with sky so went back to them, but for the last 3 weeks I've been getting annoyed as the router they supplied for this contract kept disconnecting very early in the morning and needed to be restarted often ad it failed to reconnect half the time, swapped it with the router from previous contract which somehow still works but my sync rate now seems to be gradually decreasing and I've found a few flaws with this router, but at least it reconnects every time.

[Brydo666]

I would speak to any neighbours who have the service to discuss reliablility.

I used to be on virgin 10mb, but towards the end I was getting massive latency now and then (iirc 2000-3000ms), and the line keps going down every few weeks - sometimes for a few days at a time. Family next door had the same grief.

We never had any headache with sky so went back to them, but for the last 3 weeks I've been getting annoyed as the router they supplied for this contract kept disconnecting very early in the morning and needed to be restarted often ad it failed to reconnect half the time, swapped it with the router from previous contract which somehow still works but my sync rate now seems to be gradually decreasing and I've found a few flaws with this router, but at least it reconnects every time.

I've spoken to three neighbours using VM and they recommend it. The woman whom lives upstairs from us said she didn't want to try Sky because she didn't like the dish on the building (There is one there now that we got put up ... the only one in the street too!) - it seems reliable in the area.

I've got a Sagemcom router that Sky gave us and works perfect, never had an issue. Would you like it once I'm done with it?

[Mickey]

Generally cable is better than ADSL. no real issues on my v1rgin line, when i do i ring up abudabi land and complain. i usually get a pressie as i tell em im off to another provider

[Over Carl]

I've got a Sagemcom router that Sky gave us and works perfect, never had an issue. Would you like it once I'm done with it?

Cheers for the offer but the new one giving me grief is also a sagem - I suspect my problem with that not reconnecting is something to do with it using MER rather than PPPoA.

[BBK]

I have the 30mb Virgin broadband, along with the TiVo box and another HD box in the bedroom and SD in the kids room. I have to be honest, the broadband service has been a fucking dream, I had a few initial issues but then they got it all resolved and since then its been like greased lightning, my torrents clock at about 3.6Mb down, 1.5mb up. Sky can't compete with that.

As for the tv - well you get more HD on Sky, more channels too, though lets be honest, most of the channels on both are shit. As a sports fan Im chuffed I get ESPN thrown in for free along with my Sky Sports 1 & 2 in HD, but not 3, 4 or News for some reason. It's a really good package you're being offered IMO.

[trueblue924]

i got more or less the same as bbk accept i dont have a tivo and dont have sports or movies used to have both but dont use them, the bb is great i aint had a prob sometimes during the day they reduce my newsgroups to 1mb down but nomrally is around 3.5 to 3.8 and thats with the misses on her laptop and the young one on hers. The tv packs are the same except for sky atlantic and some extra hd channels so i would say sky are better for tv but not for broadband but for the price you would be paying for that vm package i would deffo take it i normally pay around £60 for my package so that is a great deal

[Gherkin]

Personally I wouldn't touch VM with a barge pole but I had a run in with them over there billing, their customer service, their installation.............................pretty much everything!

I am now with Sky and have been for a good few years. yes, their broadband is a lot slower but everything else is far, far better.

[Ginnerfreak]

Went from sky to virgin a few years back. Recently struck a good deal with them... Never had a problem with broadband, tv or home phone. Can't fault them .. would definitely recommend.



Sent from my HTC Desire using Tapatalk

[supraman54]

Cheers for the offer but the new one giving me grief is also a sagem - I suspect my problem with that not reconnecting is something to do with it using MER rather than PPPoA.

Additionally, those users that have a Vodafone Sure Signal are finding the switchover to MER on sky kills that too..

[littlebilly1]

I currently have a TiVo, V+HD, V HD box 30MB BB & Medium phone package for £67 per month, only real issue i have had with them is with the new super hub they're sending out, all is now sorted and really can't say anything bad about them

[Brydo666]

Thanks for the replies, I'm looking forward to getting it installed.

[DejaVu]

The only reasons I would not recommended Virginmedia over Sky is their terrible customer service (Telewest and Blueyonder were the bollox in comparison!) and diabolical terms for Fair Usage.

Super fast download speeds with unreasonable caps.
I suppose it was OK, so long as you only downloaded at night, but with a house that is totally internet orientated (6 laptops, 4 Blackberrys, 2 Android phones, Revo Media Center and my main PC) hitting their 'limits' was far to easy and the internet was unusable for 5 hours at a time.

Check their Traffic Management before you commit...

That all being said, the TV and Phone deals your getting for the price probably makes it worth it.
If VM gave the option to pay more to be excluded from their Traffic Management on the smaller packages would be the only reason I would return.

[flumperino]

Personally I always found VM's customer service to be ok. My experience of sky customer service on the other hand has been absolutely diabolical.

I guess CS experiences are different for different people.

[Brydo666]

Perhaps someone could answer this question about Sky, and save me opening a new thread?

If I was to take down my Sky dish and fittings, sell the lot with the cabling/box/dish/lnb to someone else (Probably eBay) - what would they require to get it working? Could they buy a viewing card from Sky that would get them the FTA channels?

[Brydo666]

The lad came today from Virgin Media to do my install. All services are working well and newsgroups are coming down about 3.7 MB/sec.

[funkyg]

Perhaps someone could answer this question about Sky, and save me opening a new thread?

If I was to take down my Sky dish and fittings, sell the lot with the cabling/box/dish/lnb to someone else (Probably eBay) - what would they require to get it working? Could they buy a viewing card from Sky that would get them the FTA channels?

Yep, that's exactly what we did when we left sky years ago.
Also the mother in law had her sky reinstated last year. I think it's about £20 for new card from sky.