A Virgin-free Zone

[doorframe]

As the title suggests, my house is now a virgin-free zone. At least as far as the TV is concerned!

:lol: What did you think I meant? :lol:

Yes, they've put the price up for the last time. For Broadband, and the compulsory phone line rental, even though you don't need a phone line to get broadband through the cable!, the fee for free calls!!, and the lousy TV package (no films or sport) plus 1 extra V+ box, the bill for this month hit the ludicrous height of £89.

Tried to negotiate a better deal but hit a brick wall of rehearsed excuses why they couldn't lower the bill. Told them to take the lot out of my house. They thought I was bluffing (which I was, sort of), but when I wouldn't back down, they did!

Keeping the phone and BB, because to be honest I can't get a better deal, and getting 1 x TIVO box for SWIMBO. £52. The clowns wanted £40 to install. Yeah, right. They soon backed down on that as well.

For me, it's good old freeview and a PC connected to the TV.

Virgin really do suck at keeping existing customers happy. They just use us to subsidize the price for new customers.

 

[artie]

Well done, a mate of mine is now skyless and not too happy. He wouldn't back down and neither would they.

 

[Mark A]

I negotiated a pretty good deal with Sky: £34/month for Broadband, Phone (don't use), Line Rental and Sky+ TV.

The Broadband's slower than Virgin and recently the WiFi's been playing up, but otherwise Sky's far better.

 

[LeeElms]

Mark -- I would be interested to know how you got the price down !?

 

[RogerP]

........
Virgin really do suck at keeping existing customers happy. They just use us to subsidize the price for new customers.

That's not been my experience with Virgin.

I have 100 meg cable BB, all calls to UK geographical telephone numbers +0845 and 0870 numbers are included, caller display, a smallish TV package + Eurosport 1 & 2 (for the best cycling cover there is) - not interested in other sports or films. Total bill is £50 a month.

I been with Virgin and their predecessors on the same cable connection for about 20 years.

 

[NikNak]

We left Sky and went back to Virgin....

Was paying nearly £70 a month to sky for some great tv (no sport or films tho), but crappy b/band.

We decided that paying double the amount it cost to insure BOTH cars for a whole year was just plain stupid..!

Like i said we went back to Virgin and now pay around £27 pm for..... line rental, 56mb b/band, only basic tv channels (i.e. equivalent of freeview), tivo box and free weekend calls and free caller display and no download limits either.

We pay in advance for the line rental so save £58 a year for that (works out at £12.99 instead of £16.99 pm)

Yes i miss Nat Geo and Discorvery channels.... but not for £30 a month i dont...!!

Have 'hard wired' the pc to the hub and am getting a genuine 56mb download (give or take depending on time of day) and 3mb upload. Infact as i'm sat here i've just done a speed check (Ookla...) on my iphone, and am getting 23mb download / 3mb upload, and i'm sat diagonally opposite at the other end of the house...

Oh.... also just started a free trial of Netflix for 6 months too. But we wont be continuing with that (@ £6.99 pm) as you have to trawl thru an awful lot of garbage to try and find something 'good' to watch.



Nick

 

[artie]

Tivo is something that might swing it for virgin.

I am still using one of the old Thompson ones, which in my opinion can't be beat even after all these years.

 

[Mark A]

Mark -- I would be interested to know how you got the price down !?

The price was £37.76/month, not £34 as I said earlier


Here's a breakdown of charges:

Family Package: £32 with 25% off = £24/month

Weekend Phone Tariff

Unlimited Broadband (6.8-14 mbps): £7.50 with 50% off = £3.75/month

Line Rental: 35% off

Free TV Installation

Free Phone Setup

Free Router

£75 Tesco Voucher

TOTAL:
Before Discount = £51.15/month
After Discount = £37.76/month


I took advantage of the fact that we were new customers, plus Sky had some good deals on at the time.

Hope this helps!

 

[doorframe]

We left Sky and went back to Virgin....

Like i said we went back to Virgin and now pay around £27 pm for..... line rental, 56mb b/band, only basic tv channels (i.e. equivalent of freeview), tivo box and free weekend calls and free caller display and no download limits either.

Have 'hard wired' the pc to the hub and am getting a genuine 56mb download (give or take depending on time of day) and 3mb upload. Infact as i'm sat here i've just done a speed check (Ookla...) on my iphone, and am getting 23mb download / 3mb upload, and i'm sat diagonally opposite at the other end of the house...

Nick

New customers get a big discount for the 1st year. I accept we won't get that (but I don't see why loyalty (going right back to the days of Telewest) doesn't get rewarded)).

We get 100mb on the BB (speedchecked) which can't be sniffed at.

Don't get caller display though, and £2 a month to block certain calls.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

100mb....that's incredible....I get 4 meg if I'm lucky!! (Rural location miles from the exchange)

 

[RogerP]

My Virgin connection couple of minutes ago. I could have faster if I paid more for it.

 

[mailee]

where have I gone wrong then? I have Virgin TV the basic package, 20mb broadband and the home phone and I pay £59 pm! I have been a customer since it was Diamond cable years ago! I don't have a tivo box or anything fancy and in fact don't even use the TV box as I watch everything on Freeview. I couldn't cancel them though as my business e-mail is with them so I would have to change all of my advertising too! :roll:

 

[Phill joiner]

I got fed up with the charges last year and got rid of the house phone and sky. I got a mobile with free internet connection contract for £15 a month. I now tether my I pad from the phone internet. Free view is fine on the box. Saved a fortune and don't miss sky one bit. My wife just bought the box set of game of thrones for £20. It's cheaper to buy the box sets than pay monthly for adverts.

 

[artie]

I couldn't cancel them though as my business e-mail is with them so I would have to change all of my advertising too! :roll:

Been in that position.

I now have an outlook.com email address which I am gradually moving to. Then I won't be stuck with any one supplier

 

[RogerP]

I have several email addresses including a gmail one.

I import and send all mail with a Virgin connection and Thunderbird as the mail reader. Works fine.

 

[Eric The Viking]

31Mbit on Virgin in an inner Bristol suburb.

Not wonderful, and I'm paying more than RogerP for the privilege too: Broadband + DEL + CLIP, with no TV. around 65/month.

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I'm an ***** in these things (and others, before one of you gets a dig in ) but what is "Ping"?

 

[RogerP]

The time it takes for packets to reach host.

 

[beech1948]

I have just left Sky TV,Films,Sport, Childrens TV etc etc +BB +video on demand and am now £97 per month better off.

As far as I can see after 14 years with Sky the programming is diabolical, the content is carp.

Sky called repeatedly to find out why. So frequently that I considered taking out an injunction to prevent them doing so.

Last offer from Sky was to reinstate my service for £22 per month. I refused.

We now use freesat, XBMC programmed for UK services and occasional Netflix but wading through all the garbage to find something useful is getting boring so will probably drop this.

I don't think Sky/Virgin etc will be with us in 5 yrs time as ooo's pull away from them

 

[RogerP]

So who provides your broadband now?