Sky or virgin media?

[sleep envy]

BT have fked me off no end so I'm off to a competitor.

Looking for a bundle package with phone, tv and broadband which works out within a couple of quid of each other.

What's the general consensus?

[ewenm]

I voted Virgin because with Sky you still need to pay BT line rental.

Edit: We've had no major issues with Virgin. Call centres are about as good as any other, so rubbish, but for true technical faults they've been very quick to fix them.

Edited by ewenm on Monday 23 August 18:53

[becksW]

We've been with Virgin media several years now, we've had to haggle deals occasionally but 95% of the time we are very happy with the package.

We did trial sky due to the promise of more hd channels bit of a disaster (long story) as a result very little chance of ever using sky again!

We are getting more and more hd channels (better quality than sky I believe) now on channels we like (sky were mainly sports channels) so even more satisfied. Virgin has great catch up facilities and can record more channels at one time, good layout as well.

Parents have been using sky on and off on a very basic deal with very few probs though their dish is starting to fail now.

Edited by becksW on Monday 23 August 19:05

[Dracoro]

Having had experience of both I'd say the following.

What is more important, internet connectivity or TV.

If internet than Virgin all the way.
If TV then Sky I think is better, much more HD channels etc.

[KrazyIvan]

I've been with both.

Currently Pay one virgin bill for tv, 2 phone lines and 20mb BB (which is curretly running at 19.2mb)

Sky stole £1000 off me and wouldnt give it back, but offered me £1000 credit, they then tried to do the same 2 months later, they also wouldnt cancel my account for 4 months.

[speedchick]

Been with Virgin since they were Cable and Wireless, and not had any major faults with them, sometimes calling the support people can make you lose the will to live, but when an engineer has come out, they have always been very professional and helpful.

Expecting them back in a couple of weeks to give us a V+ box and move the other box upstairs.

I think we are on the XL package, as we have no need for the movies or sports channels, and it's more than enough to keep up entertained, plus the internet seems to be pretty stable.

[anonymous-user]

I would be with virgin, but they dont run cable to the area i live in just yet, so i have to put up with sky. Anyway, i would go for virgin, especially if you go down the recordable tv route. With virgin you can record 2 channels and watch a third digital channel, with sky you cant. Also, sky is very very expensive for what you get

[TotalControl]

Extremely impressed with the performance of Virgin so far. Just don't call their customer services...

[RemaL]

ewenm said:

I voted Virgin because with Sky you still need to pay BT line rental.

Edited by ewenm on Monday 23 August 18:53

No you don't. I have Virgin phone and broadband and Sky TV. Never had BT land line in the 12 years I've been living in my house. and not had my Sky box hooked to the phone line in the past 3 years

I voted Sky as i also had issues with virgin

Edited by RemaL on Monday 23 August 19:20

[Robert Burns]

virgin all the way

the broadband at 20meg line is brilliant, never had a problem with it.

the tv isn't something i watch all the time, discovery channels and the channels for the rugby/footie will do me.

[becksW]

KrazyIvan said:

I've been with both.

Currently Pay one virgin bill for tv, 2 phone lines and 20mb BB (which is curretly running at 19.2mb)

Sky stole £1000 off me and wouldnt give it back, but offered me £1000 credit, they then tried to do the same 2 months later, they also wouldnt cancel my account for 4 months.

Sky fked up our account to the point they sent debt collectors onto us for money we didn't owe. (It was a free trial, when we cancelled it they cancelled it as though we were ending our contract early!) it took months to sort out.

[sleep envy]

RemaL said:

ewenm said:

I voted Virgin because with Sky you still need to pay BT line rental.

Edited by ewenm on Monday 23 August 18:53

No you don't. I have Virgin phone and braodband and Sky TV.

I voted Sky as i also had issues with virgin

Edited by RemaL on Monday 23 August 19:19

technically you pay bt with either seeing as they own the phone network


Cheers guys, food for thought

[RemaL]

sleep envy said:

RemaL said:

ewenm said:

I voted Virgin because with Sky you still need to pay BT line rental.

Edited by ewenm on Monday 23 August 18:53

No you don't. I have Virgin phone and braodband and Sky TV.

I voted Sky as i also had issues with virgin

Edited by RemaL on Monday 23 August 19:19

technically you pay bt with either seeing as they own the phone network


Cheers guys, food for thought

OK OK

[JackDaniels]

Have used both and found the overall experience to be better with Virgin.
I would say the only thing that could sway it to Sky is if T.V is of higher importance to you than phone or broadband then you may prefer the extra channels you can buy with sky.
I was happy with the middle range of channels offered by Virgin and the broadband has yet to go wrong, throw in the fee line rental for the phone and cheap rate calls and its a great package so no complaints at all.

[550Hep]

sleep envy said:

RemaL said:

ewenm said:

I voted Virgin because with Sky you still need to pay BT line rental.

Edited by ewenm on Monday 23 August 18:53

No you don't. I have Virgin phone and braodband and Sky TV.

I voted Sky as i also had issues with virgin

Edited by RemaL on Monday 23 August 19:19

technically you pay bt with either seeing as they own the phone network


Cheers guys, food for thought

Erm not in our case as the Virgin phone line comes down the cable from Virgin into the house and our BT line is now redundant.

I moved from Sky to Virgin about a year ago after having a nightmare after nightmare on billing, payments them taking DD's for 3 times the amount owed and generally awful service.

Virgin are by no means perfect but thus far are leagues ahead of Sky and the On Demand content with Virgin is out of this world compared to Sky.

ETA went for the 50mb Internet and it truly is 50mb which is excellent.

Edited by 550Hep on Monday 23 August 19:58

[wainy]

Never tried SKY but in the 3 years we have had virgin its only had 2 problems, one was network which affected tv and BB for a few hours other was low BB speed for 2 hours but otherwise perfect.
BB is always at or near said speed, TV (XL) has all the channels we need.

Only problem with the phone is that when 1st connected a few calls for "Mr Ali" (think we took his number on) who owed people money, did invite the callers to come round to collect it if they thought they were hard enough but never saw anyone at our house.

Have heard Sky can be susceptable to weather but cant confirm myself

[Sheets Tabuer]

I had virgin cable for years and the internet was excellent, their tv picture was sharp and the excellent V+ box and on demand service were also excellent.

I moved about a two miles away and now can't get cable but did ask virgin for my BB as I wanted an unlimited download package, they installed ADSL and quite frankly it has been the biggest pile of crap I have ever had the misfortune to use and I have used a lot of ADSL connections in the line of work I was in.

I am on the "up to 20mb" package and I typically get 6mb at 8am, if anyone is awake anywhere near me it can drop to 250k, after lots of complaints they told me to wait till August because they were going to upgrade my exchange and I will get a better connection, they said if I wasn't happy after that I could leave without paying the £150 charge to be released from my contract, well it is august and they have put the work back to march next year which is conveniently when my contract ends. Do you think they will let me out of my contract now? will they hell as like and surprise surprise they have no idea who told me I could be released from my contract despite me having his name.

I am now stuck with paying £35 a month for what is essentially a tad faster than dial up.

I have sky for my tv and I have to say while the Sky+ box is very good the picture quality is terrible unless you are watching in HD, I don't remember it being this bad watching my brothers TV a few years back and can only assume there must have been some tweaking going on to supply HD channels.

To sum up, if I was in a cable area I would get virgin because as long as you don't have to talk to them (and when they start fking your bills up you will) their cable internet is unequalled and on demand TV pisses all over sky.

If you are not in a cable area I would avoid them at all costs.

[CPB31]

Orange combined mobile, landline and internet package.

Spend balance on lovefilm subscription.

[dave-therave]

I have Virgin for t'internet and Sky+ HD for telly, can't complain about either of them!

[Alistair1990]

Got Sky at my student house, but only because we aren't in a Virgin fibre area. Pay about £52 a month for all TV apart from sports and half of the films, Sky+, unlimited broadband, phone line rental (don't pay BT anything) and free evening calls.

Spent weeks trying to get the bloody mac code for the Internet from previous tenants, but otherwise we've never had a problem. Installation was done 3 days after I ordered. Happy enough but if we could have faster Internet from Virgin (and they're free HD stuff) I'd have gone with them.