Is it worth leaving?

[mike557]

At the moment I have 10Meg BB and a phone with discount I pay £28 per month.
O2 are offering very good prices currently with £70 cashback and a month free. For an up to 8Meg service for 12 months it comes out at a total of £10.74 !!! (provided you top up mobile every 3 months with £10). They also do up to 20M for a total of £37.69.

Neighbour has O2 8 Meg and gets 7.9Meg.

All sounds good, but I will need to get my phone line moved to BT (which is free), plus I use the cable to provide terrestrial channels to my tv's. Leaving Virgin means that I will need to install an outside aerial. I will have to pay BT line rental but at least get 0845/0870 calling in the evening/weekends.

I have been a BB subscriber since it was first launched, the service is reliable and I do not download enormous amounts so not capped.

1. If I did leave would the cable be disconnected at the cabinet meaning no analogue tv?
2. How much longer will the terrestrial signals remain (True NTL Surrey)
3. Am I paying too much and would Virgin come down in price?

Thanks for your comments.
Mike

[Darrenp]

So you wish to leave but still use analogue 1-5 down the VM cable??

The analogue signal normally still works so you'd be ok til they turn it off.

Regards to "is it worth leaving?"

So the BB is £10.74 pm, the BT line is around £11 pm and you need to top up an average of £3.30 pm, that works out at £25ish pm.

If it was me I'd stick with what you have.

[mike557]

Thanks for the comment DarrenP.

The BB is only £10.74 for the full year (not per month) or £37,69 for the upto 20M BB.

In money terms I would save over £200 per year (including telephone rental) by switching.

Mike

[AndyCambs]

How do you get your television channels if you don't pay for them?

[mike557]

Only get ch 1-5 plus qvc - no set top box just plug into amplifier and feed to analogue tv's around the house.
This has been standard all the time I have been with NTL / Virgin.

If I move to o2 will this analogue feed be disconnected at the box - if so I will need to get an aerial?

Mike

[beeman]

They rarly disconnect the feed when a custmer leaves (unless theres limited space in the CAB and they need to connect a new customer) HOWEVER my understanding is that VM are now running a phased shutdown of the analog service which they want completed by the end of this year/middle of 2010. you could loose the analog service tomorrow ornot for nother 12 months (so its proberlly worth getting that ariel installed anyway).

[mike557]

Thanks Beeman that is what I needed to know.

I have said that I want to leave, was offered 'a deal' which is still too expensive. If VM come back to me with a better deal I may consider it as it will save the hassle of transferring my phone to BT and switching to o2. But if no call then I will be gone and at least have the flexibility of getting broadband from different providers.

It is a shame as I have been happy with the BB but in these days you must consider cost / loyalty. I know cable is best for speed / upgrades but other BB providers on adsl give cheaper and faster services than I currently have without possible capping :-(

Mike

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