Topic: Sky, Virgin or BT?

[neesy111]

Decided to switch away from Virgin Media for TV, Phone and Broadband as they've gone from the best in my area to utter dross in the space of four years. With poor customer service to boot.

Any ideas on the best (read: cheapest) way to switch to Sky or BT?

Do you have a BT landline installed or not?

Yeah

Should be straight forward.  Because virgin is done over cable, then you'll just need to get that cancelled and then tell new ADSL provider when you want it installed, they may need to send out an engineer to test the line etc.

[Super Duper Branko Strupar]

Been without internet for 6 days because Virgin had cut me off at the box (100m away from my house) because of noise on the line. About a month ago they upgraded my box and router and whilst he was here I asked the lad to properly splice the cable the last engineer had just wrapped electricians tape round after they had to fix it because the stupid builders cut it. Which he did. Turns out he'd done a s*** job and due to the noise travelling back along the line, slowing everyone down, they blocked my connection.

Fair enough, the line's f***ed, it's causing issue and it needs fixing. But surely they f***ing knew when they blocked a single port which house that would be. And surely they could have had the courtesy to get in touch and say 'Your line needs fixing, we've had to block you, we'll be round asap to fix it. Our bad". But no call, text, email, alert on my account... Just wait till I get in touch, spending ages holding and ages going through the nonsense, to say I have a problem. Then the first time I called they could do f*** all as their systems were down. Second time I even told the c***s that the router status when i logged in to it said next to Internet "Access denied". I told the c***s. But nah, we have to book and engineer. Next slot is Monday. This was on Wednesday.

f***ing furious. Tethering like a bitch for 6 days, man.

[TK-421]

All of the UKTV channels are being removed from Virgin Media line-up from Sunday...

https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/News/UKTV-Channels/ba-p/3775282

From Sunday all UKTV channels and programming will be replaced on Virgin TV
Channels affected are:
Drama, Really, Yesterday, Home, Gold, W, Alibi, Dave, Eden and Good Food. This includes +1 and HD channels, as well as On Demand and TV Go content.

We are still in discussions with UKTV, but we have already invested in an extensive collection of much-loved programming which will be made available to you (depending on your bundle*).

This includes:

Paramount Network with shows like Suits and Designated Survivor;
YourTV, a new channel which is home to Castle, Bones and Body of Proof;
Love Nature which is exclusive to Virgin TV and has some stunning nature programmes such as Africa’s Wildest Horizons and Great Wild Blue;
IQTV, which contains some of best quiz shows like Mastermind and The Weakest Link;
Numerous new box sets such as Shades of Blue, Supergirl and Madam Secretary.
We will also be making the Premier Sports HD channel available to all TV customers initially for two months with no additional subscription required.  This will mean you can enjoy all of the football matches from the International Champions Cup, which features the best six teams in the English Premier League and many of the top European teams. This weekend both Manchester City and Liverpool will face Dortmund and Bayern Munich will take on Paris Saint-Germain.  Alongside the football many other gripping sporting events are available on Premier Sports – from every Pro 14 Rugby game to NHL ice hockey matches.

That’s not all! Some of our existing channels, such as Lifetime and True Entertainment which hosts programmes such as Murder, She Wrote, The Persuaders and The New Avengers will also made available to more of our TV customers at no extra cost.

You can read more about our new channels here https://community.virginmedia.com/t5/News/New-Channels/ba-p/3775403

On top of this we continue to expand our range of on-demand and 4K Ultra HD programming, with plans to launch more this year.
Virgin Media has had a long relationship with UKTV, but viewing behaviours among our customers are changing and we are committed to investing in the kind of programming you want to watch, whenever and however you want to watch it.

Unfortunately, due to the restrictions put on UKTV by the BBC, UKTV is not able to provide the significant on-demand programming that we know our customers want.

For a full list of affected channels, and how to continue watching them click here

*For those unsure which TV package they have this can be viewed online by logging into My Virgin Media.

I know most of them are available on Freeview, but seems odd to remove them from their TV package just because of an issue with UKTV's on-demand content (seemingly).

[kingkerouac]

We are having similar issues with virgin.  Speed of broadband is great, but router and service are becoming totally unreliable.

Same here. Been with the f***ers for 10 years, but the last few years (since it was bought by those American Vulture capitalists), the service has been s***. CS, which has always been glacial, is now worse.
I lost my broadband right in the middle of the 1st half of the WC Final, but I don't remember the last time we were able to watch a film all the way through without it buffering or stopping.
Unfortunately BT only offer a very slow speed service and I can't have Sky because my landlady hates Murdoch, and doesn't want any of his dishes on her house.
A mate at work said that One Plus is pretty good, but it came second in the table of customer complaints recently.

[LFEE]

Cheapest broadband deal? Been with Virgin for last 12 month and after an iffy start they’ve been fine but I simply don’t need the high speed of the basic package or the phone line and it’s about to jump from £31 which I see as high to to £40+

Thinking of going with First Utility as I get my Gas & Electric through them so cost for the broadband is £18.99 and don’t need line rental.

Any advice greatly appreciated thanks ...

[Wullie]

I don't think you can get broadband other than Virgin without line rental but that might be factored into that price.

[BlufPurdi]

Can you do it with f***ing Virgin?  I've been trying for years, but they keep telling me it'll "cost the same without it", so I just f***ing put up with this stupid little landline that never gets f***ing used.  £19 a month, and it's NEVER been used.

[Wullie]

Yeah Virgin is cable so no line rental but I don't think it works out much cheaper as they just charge more.

[BlufPurdi]

f***ing pricks.

[LFEE]

https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/packages/?filters%5Bdownload_speeds%5D%5B%5D=medium&filters%5Bmonthly_costs%5D%5B%5D=low&filters%5Bpackages%5D%5B%5D=broadband&postcode=NE96LX&visible_products=5

Any feedback ref TalkTalk? £17 all in seems canny.

[samptime29]

https://www.uswitch.com/broadband/packages/?filters%5Bdownload_speeds%5D%5B%5D=medium&filters%5Bmonthly_costs%5D%5B%5D=low&filters%5Bpackages%5D%5B%5D=broadband&postcode=NE96LX&visible_products=5

Any feedback ref TalkTalk? £17 all in seems canny.

No problems from me. I pay £33 a month for SKY Sports channels with Internet. Can order Boxing PPV through remote, internet signal is decent, good enough for gaming.

I've paid that for £33 on a special deal for nearly 18 months, I think it's going up soon, so I'll contact them.

[LFEE]

Left Virgin and 48hrs later I’m back with them minus TV and down to 50m for £17.

[samptime29]

Left Virgin and 48hrs later I’m back with them minus TV and down to 50m for £17.

 

[BlueStar]

If you're on Virgin watch out for phishing emails disguised as copyright strikes.  It's basically copied entirely from a real one, accuses you of sharing Game of Thrones and adds a threat that if you don't respond by logging into your account it'll be terminated.  Obviously the links are to a fake log-on site and are trying to get your Virgin password so they can access your email and from there reset passwords for PayPal or whatever.

[TBG]

Anyone ever had a router die on them?

At some point on Friday my broadband went down. Didn’t think too much and just assumed it would sort itself out. Nope. Still down on Saturday. Tried several times to speak to someone on the phone at NOW TV but all of their lines were busy. Managed to speak to several people (because they’re useless) on the live chat and they all pretty much said the line is okay, try resetting the router and lastly replace the micro filter. Did all that but of course it didn’t work. Got back on to them and basically told them to cut the bullshit. The advisor said it sounds like a broken router and they’ll send out a new one.

In all the years using routers, I’ve never had one die on me, and tbh I don’t think this one has either. It’s still powered and every device and can pick it up but in the router settings it says ‘Broadband disconnected’ and the WAN and LAN status are down. To me that says it’s on NOW TV’s side and they’re fobbing me off with a new router rather than sending out an engineer.

[chopey]

Anyone use iptv on a smart TV? If so which is the best to use and how do you add channels or play lists.

[mrmojorisin75]

Anyone use iptv on a smart TV? If so which is the best to use and how do you add channels or play lists.

yeah i use it on my sony android telly, works fine

i just use the app they tell me to and everything is there, or do you mean kodi?

[chopey]

Anyone use iptv on a smart TV? If so which is the best to use and how do you add channels or play lists.

yeah i use it on my sony android telly, works fine

i just use the app they tell me to and everything is there, or do you mean kodi?

Not Kodi just the smart IPTV app but it doesnt come loaded with channels, do you have to pay for it ?

[mrmojorisin75]

Anyone use iptv on a smart TV? If so which is the best to use and how do you add channels or play lists.

yeah i use it on my sony android telly, works fine

i just use the app they tell me to and everything is there, or do you mean kodi?

Not Kodi just the smart IPTV app but it doesnt come loaded with channels, do you have to pay for it ?

ah yeah pay for a subscription to get the channels yeah, don't think you can just add them like

[Bowie]

I'm pretty clueless about anything like this so is anyone aware of any decent deals at the minute? Our Virgin contract is coming to an end and we need to find something else. Everyone seems to be paying different prices which is annoying, I'd rather not have to ring up anywhere and plead for their best deal tbh.

[Wullie]

I've just moved to Virgin after ten years with Sky, I've moved house and I'm not in a Sky fibre area any more so it was more sensible to go all out Virgin rather than split the TV off. Depends how much you're after paying but I'm pretty happy with the deal I got, £49 a month for 100Mbps internet and TV including BT Sport. Was paying £53 with Sky with no sports at all.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

My Virgin fibre is going up by another £5 a month, getting silly now. Seems to happen every couple of months.

[Beren]

My Virgin fibre is going up by another £5 a month, getting silly now. Seems to happen every couple of months.

Old hat: call up, threaten to leave, they give you a discount.

You're right, they do take the p*ss with the regularity of their super-inflation price increases.

[AyeDubbleYoo]

My Virgin fibre is going up by another £5 a month, getting silly now. Seems to happen every couple of months.

Old hat: call up, threaten to leave, they give you a discount.

Always like to be able to genuinely leave though, not sure there are any alternatives for fibre without a phoneline.

[Beren]

My Virgin fibre is going up by another £5 a month, getting silly now. Seems to happen every couple of months.

Old hat: call up, threaten to leave, they give you a discount.

Always like to be able to genuinely leave though, not sure there are any alternatives for fibre without a phoneline.

It's only a threat though If the threat fails you stay, they're hardly prideful about it. You're only trying to achieve a discount, not produce competition

Good to have some fake quotes to hand though (they can also be fabricated, within reason).