Dos_Box Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 (edited) Very nice of Virgin to give me a free upgrade from 30 Mbps to 50 Mbps in the summer. They have just let me know by email. I was going to pay for an upgrade (whilst ditching cable and the phone line) anyway. Should save me a few pennies Edited February 18, 2014 by Dos_Box
fiendishlyclever Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 They tried to tell me this was the reason they were putting my package up by 12% now. TV and phone were promptly cancelled. I got Sky for £3.50 a month and I'm using Sipgate with a Cisco box to route my dect phone to a Nottingham phone number - no line rental. Go for it.
synaesthesia Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Still annoys me how people get away with forcing you to have a phone line & rental. Especially Virgin, absolutely no need for it Glad I moved from Sky to Virgin though (moved from one to the other before) due to crap speeds but I do miss Sky's reasonable-when-they-want-to-be customer services. I don't miss their crap filtering systems!
fromtheinternet Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 They tried to tell me this was the reason they were putting my package up by 12% now. TV and phone were promptly cancelled. I got Sky for £3.50 a month and I'm using Sipgate with a Cisco box to route my dect phone to a Nottingham phone number - no line rental. Go for it. How are you routing calls over landline without paying line rental?
featured_spectre Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Still annoys me how people get away with forcing you to have a phone line & rental. Especially Virgin, absolutely no need for it Glad I moved from Sky to Virgin though (moved from one to the other before) due to crap speeds but I do miss Sky's reasonable-when-they-want-to-be customer services. I don't miss their crap filtering systems! I gotta say I am glad I switched the other way, no line shaping or throttling of the connection, no calls when I download over 100GB in a month (steam/origin library) 1
synaesthesia Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 When Virgin throttle, the throttled speed is still far greater than the fastest Sky could give me at my old house, and still greater than Sky can offer me via fibre at the new house. Mileage massively varies depending on circumstance really. Besides which, far better telly package currently. Swings and roundabouts. (I've downloaded about 250gb in 3 days, no phone call yet... ) 2
Dos_Box Posted February 18, 2014 Author Posted February 18, 2014 When Virgin throttle, the throttled speed is still far greater than the fastest Sky could give me at my old house, and still greater than Sky can offer me via fibre at the new house. Mileage massively varies depending on circumstance really. Besides which, far better telly package currently. Swings and roundabouts. (I've downloaded about 250gb in 3 days, no phone call yet... ) That's exactly the reason I stuck with them. Throttled speed is still much faster than other ISP's in the area.
IWDave Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 They tried to tell me this was the reason they were putting my package up by 12% now. TV and phone were promptly cancelled. I got Sky for £3.50 a month and I'm using Sipgate with a Cisco box to route my dect phone to a Nottingham phone number - no line rental. Go for it. I do the same thing; Sipgate account, SPA941 phones and a SPA9000
featured_spectre Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 That's exactly the reason I stuck with them. Throttled speed is still much faster than other ISP's in the area. Down here, the sky copper is faster than virgin fibre (not joking). I have a friend who lives 2 streets away, his "100mb" broadband, tops out at maybe 8mb during peak, whereas my sky tops out near 17mb during peak. Offpeak (between 11pm to about 8am around our way) his virgin fibre is quicker than my sky copper, his virgin line hits easily 60mb and mine maxes out at 40mb.
synaesthesia Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Wonder if Google would like to give Fibre a go over here... 1
Pyroman Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Still annoys me how people get away with forcing you to have a phone line & rental. Especially Virgin, absolutely no need for it Glad I moved from Sky to Virgin though (moved from one to the other before) due to crap speeds but I do miss Sky's reasonable-when-they-want-to-be customer services. I don't miss their crap filtering systems! You don't need a phone line with virgin :/
synaesthesia Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Correct, you don't. You'll find your bills magically higher if you don't want one though. It works out better over the year if you take line rental.
TwoZeroAlpha Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Cool, just checked my virgin account, going up to 100Mbps next month. Got a discount last month as well for signing on for another 12months.
rich_tech Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 I got upgraded to 120mb by them last year around August for free, was on the 50 meg service before, not noticed any issues at all with speed or throttling, other than it being slightly slower in the bedroom because I use a powerline adapter to get the net upstairs to my main rig here. My days of trying to smash in my bandwidth by downloading half the internet seem to be long behind me, these days its netflix and the odd game on steam being downloaded or WoW patch, which isnt massively regular. As said too, you dont have to have a phone with the broadband either, my sister has just had it installed at her house for free because of an offer from me, she had free installation and we had a months free internet, she didnt take out a phone just the broadband. I have tried ADSL in my area and with the distance from the local towns central exchange with BT in the last place we lived, it mapped out at telling me it was 12mbps before with an actual speed of about 5.5mbps on speedtest websites, not sure of the increase now because of infinity though, but virgin just works here so I wouldnt be going anywhere else readily. I wouldnt touch virgin for TV either after the last time they and sky argued and I wound up stuck on virgin unable to watch anything I liked i.e. sky1 last time they quarelled.
hawc Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 I am going from 60-100 meg in the summer. Thanks Virgin. I think now I shall stop calling Branson 'That bearded hippy tw$t' now.
Chris_ Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Very nice of Virgin to give me a free upgrade from 30 Mbps to 50 Mbps in the summer. They have just let me know by email. I was going to pay for an upgrade (whilst ditching cable and the phone line) anyway. Should save me a few pennies Thanks! I got an email from Virgin this afternoon but deleted it straight away as they usually try and sell me some TV package, phone or TiVo box... just gone back and had a look and it was about an upgrade also. Nice surprise, going from 30 to 50 around May
jinnantonnixx Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Correct, you don't. You'll find your bills magically higher if you don't want one though. It works out better over the year if you take line rental. You're right about this. The special bundles are usually cheaper than standalone broadband. The trouble is for telecoms companies is that they know the jig's up - the only commodity of value coming into the house is broadband. A landline is archaic. Mobiles have elbowed these out of the way, and if you want international, there's dirt-cheap SIP/VOIP/IM+video apps and devices. On-demand TV & films are routed over the net straight to TVs or boxes.
mac_shinobi Posted February 18, 2014 Posted February 18, 2014 Wonder if Google would like to give Fibre a go over here... If only
Dos_Box Posted February 18, 2014 Author Posted February 18, 2014 You're right about this. The special bundles are usually cheaper than standalone broadband. The trouble is for telecoms companies is that they know the jig's up - the only commodity of value coming into the house is broadband. A landline is archaic. Mobiles have elbowed these out of the way, and if you want international, there's dirt-cheap SIP/VOIP/IM+video apps and devices. On-demand TV & films are routed over the net straight to TVs or boxes. Isn't that the truth. With on demand internet delivered TV, IP telephony and mobiles, they are going to struggle. I just don't see the need for a Tivo bx anymore when I can get a freeview HD recorder with apps for £200, and Virgin want to charge me for the privilege (an a basic cable package now - just the free channels)! Cant wait til July when the contract is up
fiendishlyclever Posted February 19, 2014 Posted February 19, 2014 How are you routing calls over landline without paying line rental? I use one of these http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/products/collateral/unified-communications/small-business-voice-gateways-ata/datasheet_C78-691106.html and Sipgate.co.uk who offer geographic numbers for free (calls out are about 1.2 pence a min or similar) and you get caller display and voicemail for free too (they even email you the voicemail if you want) I keep a second number (from Flextel this time) that I give to companies, which is voicemail only (and they email the voicemail too). No more answering the phone to sales calls...
jinnantonnixx Posted February 19, 2014 Posted February 19, 2014 (edited) I've got a geographic number from: Internet Telephone Calling Solutions - DrayTEL I used to have a phone-to-VOIP adapter but that broke, so I just use a SIP app on my phone when I want to use it. It's quite handy when phoning abroad, or if you're abroad you can connect your phone to a local wireless point and make & receive calls on your geographic number (or SIP number). Other services are available, of course, and ViberOut looks interesting. Edited February 19, 2014 by jinnantonnixx
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