Virgin v Sky

[Alfahorn]

I've had my bill from Virgin today and my costs have shot up.

I currently have;

Line Rental £11
Talk Unlimited £7.95
Bundle saving £8.00
XL TV £22.00
M BB £18.00

Total; £50.95

I've been on the Sky website and I can get;

Sky TV with Sky Sports
2mb Broadband with wireless router
Free Evenings and Weekend Calls

Total £34.00

Plus BT line rental at £11.00.

I want the services that are going to benefit me the most.

I rang up Virgin explained my concerns about the prices and they offered me;

Line Rental with evening & Weekend calls
10mb broadband with wireless router
XL TV

£36.00 plus £18.00 for Sky Sports = £54.00.

What would you guys & gals do?

[norman156]

I'd go with sky. Was with Virgin Media for a year with a phone, broadband and free tv package (basically freeview with virgin central channel). The internet connection was pretty poor, was reasonably reliable but much slower than it should have been. We paid for 20mb, most we ever got is 9. Plus if you go with Sky you'll get all the channels that they pulled from Virgin Media in that spat the two companies had a couple years ago

[Alfahorn]

Can you get Setanta on Sky? Does anyone know how much extra it is?

[norman156]

Alfahorn said:

Can you get Setanta on Sky? Does anyone know how much extra it is?

You can get that on Sky, Freeview, Virgin, any of them. I'd assume the price would be on their site...

[mouseymousey]

norman156 said:

I'd go with sky. Was with Virgin Media for a year with a phone, broadband and free tv package (basically freeview with virgin central channel). The internet connection was pretty poor, was reasonably reliable but much slower than it should have been. We paid for 20mb, most we ever got is 9. Plus if you go with Sky you'll get all the channels that they pulled from Virgin Media in that spat the two companies had a couple years ago

Just to put another spin on it, I get a 100% solid 20mb from Virgin.

Also, you say all the channels that Sky pulled, wasn't it only 2 channels? Sky One and Sky Sports News?

[Muncher]

£10 per month.

Funnily enough, we were looking to add SkySportsNews to out package which for some reason isn't theredespite having the sports package, so we went on the Skywebsite, reconfigured our package adding SkySportsNews and the Discovery Channel and it made out bill drop by £1 per month :/

[wainy]

I just joined Virgin (XL TV, L Phone, L BB).
Was meant to be £36 for 1st 3 months and £44 for next 9 months

This wasn't reflected in the bill so called, was given £26 for 1st 3 months and £36 permanently after that.

Give them a call, and speak to disconnections, go in with your argument. If you want to add sky movies / sports I am sure you could get a good discount!

[Alfahorn]

I spoke to Sky.

They will do.

Sky TV with Knowledge, News & Sky Sports
Broadband upto 8mb and wireless router
Sky Talk evenings and weekends

All for £46.00, if I then add Setanta that would be another £10, however this would have to be down separately as Sky do not offer Setanta.

I like the Non-League Football on Setanta which is why I'm keen to keep Setanta.

[Alfahorn]

wainy said:

I just joined Virgin (XL TV, L Phone, L BB).
Was meant to be £36 for 1st 3 months and £44 for next 9 months

This wasn't reflected in the bill so called, was given £26 for 1st 3 months and £36 permanently after that.

Give them a call, and speak to disconnections, go in with your argument. If you want to add sky movies / sports I am sure you could get a good discount!

Thanks for the tip, I don't believe they can discount Sky Sports, that I believe is a set price.

Just to clarifiy, they offered you this deal indefinitely?

[f13ldy]

Setanta is £12.99 a month these days.

I had a torrid time with Telewest, so not sure if they have improved under the Virgin badge.

These days I mix and match between the 2. I get the 20mb BB from Virgin, phone from BT, Sky HD package from erm... Sky.

[jimmyb]

Beware I have had non stop problems with sky

[wainy]

It was last week when I phoned to complain about the bill. The £26 is the only discount item, the £36 is the std cost (for me) after the 1st 3 months. Plus another £1 off for ebilling

Doing my research before I joined, many people were getting my package (or more) for that price or less (£36)

Go in knowing the price of sky (including sports etc) and ask them to beat it.
Think they will do quite alot to keep there customers (happy) at the moment.

Edited by wainy on Tuesday 12th August 17:13

[SS HSV]

Get the basic TV package from Virgin then buy one of those 'clever boxes' from ebay that give you all the channels.

I was on 4mb but they just upgraded me to 10MB FOC lasy week

I think the total I pay with the phone line, basic TV and 10mb is only £27 PM but I did complain like crazy about some of the offers that weren't available to the long term customers.

[Saddle bum]

Virgin Media gave me so much grief over my conversion to cable, mentioning their name makes my p*** boil.

Nine hours so far on the phone and still no conclusion to the problems.

[cjs]

Don't forget Setanta 1, 2 and news is include with Virgin XL TV.

I get Phone Eve Weekends, 10mb BB, XL TV for £30 a month. They also did me a free V+ Box when I haggled.

I don't bother with Sky Sports, I go to the pub to watch a game.

Also the V+ box rocks! The on demand stuff is great and BBC iPlayer is available in full quality. It also has an HD output.

[Alfahorn]

cjs said:

Don't forget Setanta 1, 2 and news is include with Virgin XL TV.

I get Phone Eve Weekends, 10mb BB, XL TV for £30 a month. They also did me a free V+ Box when I haggled.

I don't bother with Sky Sports, I go to the pub to watch a game.

Also the V+ box rocks! The on demand stuff is great and BBC iPlayer is available in full quality. It also has an HD output.

We're you a new customer or did you just haggle hard? That's a good deal.

[cjs]

Alfahorn said:

cjs said:

Don't forget Setanta 1, 2 and news is include with Virgin XL TV.

I get Phone Eve Weekends, 10mb BB, XL TV for £30 a month. They also did me a free V+ Box when I haggled.

I don't bother with Sky Sports, I go to the pub to watch a game.

Also the V+ box rocks! The on demand stuff is great and BBC iPlayer is available in full quality. It also has an HD output.

We're you a new customer or did you just haggle hard? That's a good deal.

I was an existing Phone and BB customer. I rang up to get a deal on the TV, they did not budge too much from standard prices. I then threatened to leave and move everything across to Sky, they came back with better prices. I then actually cancelled my service giving 30 days notice, they called me back after a few days and offered me the earth to stay!

I don't know what will happen after one year, maybe I will have to re-negotiate.

[cjs]

Saddle bum said:

Virgin Media gave me so much grief over my conversion to cable, mentioning their name makes my p*** boil.

Nine hours so far on the phone and still no conclusion to the problems.

Its amazing how the same company can be so bad and so good, I have had nothing but exemplary service from Virgin, Telewest before were also good for me.

[Plotloss]

cjs said:

It also has an HD output.

That if you enable, it disables all other outputs.

So if you have a second television running off the RF output of the V+ box, wave goodbye to it if you enable HD output.

Which is cack, really.

[cjs]

Plotloss said:

cjs said:

It also has an HD output.

That if you enable, it disables all other outputs.

So if you have a second television running off the RF output of the V+ box, wave goodbye to it if you enable HD output.

Which is cack, really.

Agree, that is cack.