The, which TV/BB provider conundrum...

[CHR1S]

My monthly Vermin Media bill is now £60 (thats on mates rates too)

100Mb BB

XL TV with Tivo + second box

M Phone

 

I phoned and asked for ways to reduce my bill and was told if I drop everything to M I will save £9 a month....... WOW where do I sign up....

 

So, now I need to move away and I have no idea where to.

 

Sky seem like a logical option, they are cheaper because of the deals for new customers but I will get maximum 7Mb BB (I can live with the speed drop for a significant saving in price)

 

However I don't know much about Freeview/NowTV/ what else. The OH only watched stuff that would be available on FTA anyway so its a route I might consider. Keep the Virgin BB and scrap the rest.

 

Would love other peoples thoughts and ideas on this please.

[Michael]

With regards to TV, what are the main channels you and your family watch? You'd be amazed what you can actually get using a satellite dish and Freesat. Freesat and Sky use the same Astra 2 satellite - it's just a case of whether the channels are encrypted, which generally means you need a Sky subscription (in the UK anyway)!

[CHR1S]

Im *cough* very familiar *cough* with what you can get via a satellite *cough* and I might consider going freesat. (that vague enough? hehe)

 

 

My biggest issue is bar VM, broadband is rubbish here. I cant get any BT stuff because of this. I would say we are somewhat heavy users and they are saying up to 7mb.... thats a bit of a shock from 100.

 

Mostly FTA channels and the odd Sky 1 and very occasionally some other channels, we dont need them really. The ability to record is a must however and a good UI.

Edited June 29, 2015 by CHR1S

[XiJ]

I've just saved a whopping 50p per month on renewing not Virgin media BB

 

I have Bb + Sim only deal at £29.50 per month. I'm happy to pay this for the quick and rock steady broadband. Switching to fibre and is get about 15-20mb for a similar price. (As I'd need a phone line I don't need for anything else)

 

I also pay Sky for TV - although I don't have sports or movies. I recently negotiated a little deal so I have two HD sky+ boxes with multi room, 4 x Sky Go devices. And still have F1

 

All in I pay £60 for my TV / BB / mobile needs.

 

We occasionally buy a nowtv sub when they are offer and stream to TV via chrome cast. Currently using a 3 movies movies for £10 deal. There was a £1 for 3 months entertainment deal going around too.

 

So with Freeview, occasional nowTV and *cough* other methods I think you could half your current bill and keep super quick broadband.

[XiJ]

Oh and for recoding Freeview, I always liked the humax devices / UI. Only recent sky improvements have made me like Murdochs offerings.

[Edu-IT]

I currently pay £47 for line rental, fibre broadband and family bundle TV in two rooms. That's with Sky.

 

I don't consider this to be too bad.

 

I managed to get the family bundle TV for £6 a month for a couple of relatives the other day.

 

I'd never pay full price for Sky. Last time I cancelled I was immediately given 60% off & £100 account credit by email, so, there are deals to be had with Sky.

[CHR1S]

Virgin offered M TV, 50Mb BB, M Phone and 1Tb Tivo for £39 or £44 with 100mb.

 

I might consider that seeing as I really dont want to lose my fiber and its only £10 for the TV and Tivo.

Now, do I play the retentions card? Never done it with VM.

[Achandler]

Always play it! You can change your mind the day before they kick you off anyways and they'll keep you. Once you say that you want to cancel it, you can wait 29 days then say you changed your mind and they'll say ok and keep you. Hoepfully they might have rung you offering you something before that though.

[JRowley]

I always tell my ISP (Sky) that I'm considering leaving because I can get the same product cheaper at X rival company, even if I'm not looking for a discount and am ringing up for something else, they often just half price my broadband for 12 months.

[tmcd35]

I pay VM a little less than £30pcm for 60Mb. They're threatening to double it for free to 100Mb (their maths is better than mine it seems), who am I to complain?

 

That's all I've paid for years now. Freeview/FreeSat is good enough IMHO if you really need live TV. Personally I've made do with a combination of YouTube/iPlayer/Netflix for a long time now. Add in the odd Plex/Torrent content, and I've all the TV media I need. And 60Mb is more than speedy enough to deliver it. I did have Sky Now for a while - less than £10pcm for the basic sky channels streamed, plus on demand, might found I never actually watched it.

Edited June 30, 2015 by tmcd35
they're english is better than mine also!

[CHR1S]

I think I will try the cancellation route and hope for a retentions deal.

 

Im truly stuck with VM until BT lay new fibre as I cant cope with 5Mb BB and its £28 for 50Mb on its own.

[Earthling]

I recently dumped Virgin, I was paying £75 pm just for the XLXXLLLLXXX (or whatever) bundle with Sky Sports. That's all, just TV, no phone, no BB.

 

I really do not like their pricing structure, which seems to come down to 'What bargain the individual can strike with Customer Retentions'.

 

Went over to BT TV, which is just recycled Freeview or YouView or some such. It's crap, anyway, BBC 4 and that's about as good as it gets.

 

I don't really watch much broadcast TV, I miss Discovery, Nat Geo and Eden but I'm not paying premium prices to get 1,082 channels of dross just to get those few channels.

 

I tend to get what I want to watch from the Interweb.

[rich_tech]

I am paying around £53 with VM a month for 152meg broadband and a house phone (which we have really for incoming calls only or the odd 0845 which mobiles rip you off on.

 

Sky is £40 with movies and multiroom (I wont do VM TV as I like Sky Atlantic and I remember when they fell out and I lost Sky1 and all the TV I loved before)

[XiJ]

Virgin TV with the Sky Sports seems a very expensive way to do it. I only really got Sky for F1 - but we do watch a lot of Sky Atlantic, Sky1, Watch, and other sky channels now. I pay a little more to keep F1 but not require a sports sub like you do as a new customer.

[ass17]

My bill was around £32 p/m for M phone and M BB, threaten to leave quoting the £5 p/m for 12 months deal on uswitch and they matched the price but gave me the deal for 18 months. I even said I had issues with super hub and they sent out super hub 2 free. RESULT!!!!!!

 

So I'm saving £10 p/m for the next 18 months

Edited June 30, 2015 by ass17

[Earthling]

I am paying around £53 with VM a month for 152meg broadband and a house phone (which we have really for incoming calls only or the odd 0845 which mobiles rip you off on.

 

Sky is £40 with movies and multiroom (I wont do VM TV as I like Sky Atlantic and I remember when they fell out and I lost Sky1 and all the TV I loved before)

 

 

I don't think there's been a series on Sky Atlantic that I've wanted to watch, that I haven't been able to d**nl**d from somewhere on the I****n*t.

 

It was being able to do that and to find a live stream of every Spurs game that started me thinking that I didn't need to be paying £75 pm.

 

Judging by the number of people on here who have struck a deal with VM Retentions, it seems my summing-up of their pricing structure is spot-on. When I left, they offered me exactly the same package as I was on for £45 pm and a renewed contract. If they could do that after threatening to leave, why can't they do it as a standard price?

[psydii]

Or just skip out on the TV part and save yourself £380 a year?

[Achandler]

Just because you can illegally stream stuff or download load it doesn't make it the right thing to do though. Some people are happy to pay and recieve the channels and shows through legitimate means.

 

Whatever peoples beliefs are when it comes to getting stuff off the Internet (not through something e.g Netflix), it is usually illegal and is not a real alternative to getting TV and BB. The fact that you have starred it out shows that.

 

I do agree entirely with you with regards to the pricing though, if they can offer you cheaper deals to keep you, then why can't they be upfront and honest about it and say the price is this, everyone pays this. Not you argued more, or you threatened to leave, so yours is cheaper....

[ass17]

As with insurance companies, they send you a renewal which is far more expensive than you currently pay, hoping that you say nothing and they get get paid more money. It seems is a model a lot of companies are adopting when it comes to renewals.

[mthomas08]

I've gone everything on Virgin Media including my mobile contract.

 

As a result we pay £105 which covers everything, from high broadband, TV + Sport/Films + my mobile and the usual phone.

 

We originally was with sky and was paying almost as much for far less. Although Sky may seem cheaper for new customers once you get past that you will find it's more expensive unless you are getting less.

 

Usually you can phone up Virgin and say you want to cancel because you can get almost as much for far less, now help me otherwise I want to cancel now. Likewise for Sky, they tried to offer me 6 months NEW customer rates but I said what's the point when I will be back here.

 

All Virgin/Sky can do is offer you the rates of any deals going on or cut back on what you have.

 

I still found Virgin was cheaper than Sky but we do get almost the entire package. Considering I was paying £40 for Sky broadband, £60 Sky TV and another £40 for Orange mobile.

[Earthling]

Just because you can illegally stream stuff or download load it doesn't make it the right thing to do though. Some people are happy to pay and recieve the channels and shows through legitimate means.

 

Whatever peoples beliefs are when it comes to getting stuff off the Internet (not through something e.g Netflix), it is usually illegal and is not a real alternative to getting TV and BB. The fact that you have starred it out shows that.

 

I do agree entirely with you with regards to the pricing though, if they can offer you cheaper deals to keep you, then why can't they be upfront and honest about it and say the price is this, everyone pays this. Not you argued more, or you threatened to leave, so yours is cheaper....

 

Am I being 'told off'? Sorry, others have tried it in the past, with an equally resounding lack of success.

 

I starred the wording out in deference to the Moderators on this board, so they wouldn't have a moral dilemma over whether to delete or redact my post.

 

Doesn't make it right? Depends on your interpretation of 'right'. Illegal? Yes, but in the Great Scheme of Things, there are far more and greater illegalities being perpetrated on us by Big Biz and our own UK Government, but we all sit back and accept that. Do you ever park somewhere you're not supposed to, even for just five minutes? That's illegal. No? The only way I won't believe you don't is if you don't drive and don't own a car.

 

Besides which, I have a sneaking suspicion that I'm not the only one here who practices questionable uses of their download speed. I'm just upfront enough to admit it. Is anyone seriously telling me that you NEED 100meg/second (or even 150meg/sec) to surf the net and stream BBC iPlayer, Netflix etc? Even if you have a family of Mum, Dad and 2.3 teenagers? Don't make me laugh.

 

VM provide 100 + speeds AND a fully populated binary newsgroup server. The last time I looked at that, they even gave links to binary NG downloaders like Grabit etc, and instructions on how to configure them for use with their servers.

 

Why do they do that, huh? Why do they do that?

[Achandler]

I'll ignore your personal attack on, trying to start an argument over something that didn't even happen. I stated it was illegal, and as such isn't the right thing to be doing, if you diagree fine, people drink underage, they do drugs, they speed, however in general most things are illegal also aren't the right things to be doing or encouraging others to do. Everyone makes their own choices and it is entirely up to them, I didn't judge your choice, just said it wasn't a real alternative (as the original poster wants a better deal for what they alreayd pay for). I won't try and give examples of where right and illegal don't work well, like you have tried with when illegal and the right thing may be considered a grey areas.

 

I didn't try to provide a legal sliding scale of seriousness of crimes, and never claimed people doing it were better or worse than anyone else, nor that big businesses or governments were all squeaky clean. I just stated what the law was.

 

Noone ever claimed they NEED 100meg BB either.

 

In reality there is currently a real issue in the UK, and worldwide with there being no equivalent of the likes of spotify, now apple music etc that give people access to films and tv series online through decent legal means is almost definitely a shortcoming that needs to be addressed, but in reality this will take years, things like Napster, Kazaa etcforced the music industry to change and maybe one day film and tv will follow suite.

 

So no need to be defensive, it is almost like you immediately have assumed people are targetting you for your choices, when in reality noone was. Justifying it when noone questioned i or asked you too. I just don't think that promoting something illegal shouldn't happen on this forum, whether is it streaming films, breaking license agreements or to use your example how to park illegally and get away with it.

[hardtailstar]

Is anyone seriously telling me that you NEED 100meg/second (or even 150meg/sec) to surf the net and stream BBC iPlayer, Netflix etc? Even if you have a family of Mum, Dad and 2.3 teenagers? Don't make me laugh.

 

I have 60mb VM Broadband, If im online gaming, my mum is streaming iplayer and my brother is browsing the web. We usually have some issues of lag.

 

Thankfully my brother is at university so this doesnt happen so often