Sky versus Virgin

[joteddyred]

Sky's prices are increasing again on 1 December.  Coupled with the fact that our broadband is pretty shite, I decided to look into what Virgin had to offer.

After a couple of conversations, they've offered me an 18 month contract with the same tv package we have with sky plus BT sports,  fibre optic broadband and line rental at a significantly reduced rate for 9 months.  The next 9 months is full price, which is literally the same as what we pay for Sky.

Rang to cancel Sky and in order to try and keep us they offered to upgrade us to Fibre optic broadband free of charge, upgrade the skyplus box in our bedroom to an hd one free of charge and reduce all elements of our package for 10 months.  The contract will be 12 months.  The monthly amount is still higher than the reduced virgin rate, but is a shorter contract, so averaged out is not much more expensive.

Now I'm not sure what to do.  Husband thinks we should stay with Sky, as moving to Virgin will involve cables being cut out and relaid etc.

Has anyone got experience of both?  Which is better?  How easy would it be to move back to Sky at the end of the 18 months to get new customer offers?

[Chubbs]

The way BT Sport is going, Sky Sports will soon have nothing to air. They are throwing money left right and center. I know its not a massive sport but they have recently got the rights to air all the Speedway. Its only a matter of time before they buy the rights to F1 i reckon.

[The Grim Reaper]

Switched from Sky to Virgin last year. Price wise Virgin marginally cheaper but VM broadband is about 10 times faster than Sky's so that alone is a no brainer. BT Sports is free on VM as opposed to £15 a month on Sky. VM TiVo box can record 3 programmes at once compared to Sky's 2. The only downside I personally noticed is VM have yet to reach an agreement to carry Sky Atlantic channel at present.

[jayohaitchenn]

Still completely baffles me why anyone would pay for TV. Internet wise, VM dicks all over sky.

[magicroundabout]

i've virgin broadband and sky tv.

Picture quality: sky is miles better. why? not sure. it's just an instant visual difference.

Tivo: hated it. who cares about recording 3 programmes. i never needed it. the EPG is slow and clunky. couple of good ideas in the box but it's all a nonsense.

Broadband: speaks for itself. were getting a free upgrade to 150mbps in dec

Price wise: we pay £33pm for our broadband and phone. Sky we pay £36 and have everything except movies. this includes HD and Multiroom

[magicroundabout]

http://www.sky.com/shop/offers/12months/30/?DCMP=afc-731083&affiliate=true

[Sippo]

Still completely baffles me why anyone would pay for TV. Internet wise, VM dicks all over sky.

And why people pay extorniate amounts for it. I pay £11pm for broadband and phone. It's not fibre, it's adsl but we get around 10mbps download which is sufficient.

How anyone can pay upwards of £50pm is beyond me.

[Simon Pieman]

My virgin package is extortionate. But I watch sports every day and stream plenty of films. I'm still yet to find a consistently good way to stream live sports in HD quality or I'd probably cancel that part of my subscription.

People spend loads of money on consoles and games when they could play scrabble which is much much cheaper. It's not the same though.

[Sippo]

If someone can justify it then that's their choice. I hear of people spending over £100pm. It's an absolute con in my opinion.

I don't have time to watch tv. Maybe that's part of the issue.

Isn't a lot of sky programs, such as movies, repeated a lot though?

[Skinny Pete]

My package with Sky for Broadband/TV/Phone was about £100 depending on call costs.

After threatening to go to Virgin it was slashed to £53!

Rip-off bastards, the lot of 'em.

[Simon Pieman]

If someone can justify it then that's their choice. I hear of people spending over £100pm. It's an absolute con in my opinion.

I don't have time to watch tv. Maybe that's part of the issue.

Isn't a lot of sky programs, such as movies, repeated a lot though?

I don't have Sky Movies for that reason and in terms of television programmes, I tend to stream those too. There's very little on television worth watching when I browse through the 230+ channels. It's ridiculous.

[Sippo]

We have freesat, but don't tend to watch much other than the bbc1, channel 4, CBeebies and occasionally ITV.

[Honkytonk]

The fact companies like this charge so much really gets my goat. The download speeds in my village are about 5mbps on a good day, pings round about 300ms. I regularly go over other peoples houses who have bought into fibre (which of course is all ftc round here) and they don't get much better. We live near the cabinet so are lucky.

I'm sure in Swindon etc. everything is quicker but until someone forces them to BT/Virgin/Sky ain't gonna do shit for rural communities but will instead charge you up the wazoo for stuff you can't physically get if you let them. How they're allowed to do that is beyond me.

[Sippo]

you say that, but some our rural schools, such as Buckland, is on fttc while at home, in redhouse, I can't get fttc.

Work that one out! BT Openreach just seem to choose random exchanges to upgrade when they want.

[Honkytonk]

you say that, but some our rural schools, such as Buckland, is on fttc while at home, in redhouse, I can't get fttc.

Work that one out! BT Openreach just seem to choose random exchanges to upgrade when they want.

Highest visibility type job isn't it? The kids and teachers and parents all come home from school going 'Oh that new fibre is sooooo much faster, perhaps we should get it?'. Baboom. More sales.

Until they get rid of the copper, in rural areas you will get a marginal speed boost at best. I wouldn't mind if it was part of a structured upgrade but BT refuse to admit that it could be improved. "NO THIS IS FINE. YOU CAN'T WATCH IPLAYER BUT IT IS FINE. WHAT DO YOU WANT?"