Moving away from Virgin Media. Advice.

**Damien** · 26-05-2010, 09:57

Hello there!

So I am thinking of moving away from Virgin Media. Nothing wrong with the service which I am quite happy with but the price is starting to get stupid. Basically, If I combine it with Sky it is quite a bit cheaper. Adding about £30 including line rental whereas my bill without extra cost is £50ish for phone and Internet on Virgin. Also, we make a lot of calls to France and these are included on Sky's £5 a month phone package but not on Virgin so that bumps it out to £65!!

So: £51 + £65 on current combination of Sky/Virgin
or: £79 + little monthly charge for everything on Sky.

So questions:

I quite like Virgin. If I could reduce the price I might stay. Any advice if this were possible? If I was to phone to move away would they reduce it slightly
Moving seems quite hard. I would get line rental with Sky but they don't seem to be able to do this with my Virgin line? Do I need to reactive an old BT line as well?

Any other advice you can offer on matters I should consider but have not would also be welcome

Thanks!

Matty_ · 26-05-2010, 14:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damien

Hello there!

So I am thinking of moving away from Virgin Media. Nothing wrong with the service which I am quite happy with but the price is starting to get stupid. Basically, If I combine it with Sky it is quite a bit cheaper. Adding about £30 including line rental whereas my bill without extra cost is £50ish for phone and Internet on Virgin. Also, we make a lot of calls to France and these are included on Sky's £5 a month phone package but not on Virgin so that bumps it out to £65!!

So: £51 + £65 on current combination of Sky/Virgin
or: £79 + little monthly charge for everything on Sky.

So questions:

I quite like Virgin. If I could reduce the price I might stay. Any advice if this were possible? If I was to phone to move away would they reduce it slightly
Moving seems quite hard. I would get line rental with Sky but they don't seem to be able to do this with my Virgin line? Do I need to reactive an old BT line as well?

Any other advice you can offer on matters I should consider but have not would also be welcome

Thanks!

I`m in the process of moving from Virgin to Sky at the moment (we had the dish and Sky+ HD box installed yesterday) and the deal we are getting is going to save us a few quid, plus we get a bit more!

The phone line thing is a bit of a p.i.t.a but at the moment they are doing a deal where they put a new BT phone line in for free when you sign up to a new package (i think it`s normally ~£128) the openreach guys are due to come in a couple of weeks. Normally it`s £11 per month for the line rental but with the deal we got they wave this charge until Christmas

I`m not sure what they are going to do as we have been with Virgin since it was Nynex. It does look like we still have a cable coming to the front of the house so they`ll probably take it from there.

We used to pay approximately £70 a month for Virgin for 10Mb broadband, free phone calls to UK landlines, the normal tv pack with all the Sky Sports channels but no V+ box or anything HD.

What we are going to be getting is Sky Talk unlimited which is free calls to UK landlines 24/7 plus free calls to 20 International destinations (France is one of them). Cost = £5
Sky Broadband unlimited which is up to

20 Mb unlimited downloads (allthough i`ll be happy if i get the same speed as Virgin 10Mb) plus a free wireless router (Virgin never gave us one)
Tv wise we`re getting the Variety pack, Knowledge pack and News and Events plus all the Sky Sports channels. This originally came to £38, £20 for the basic channels and £18 for the Sports.
However we wanted HD and at first thought this would include Sky Sports HD as the saleswoman said "Yeh you will be able to watch the football in HD" but she only meant the free BBC HD and ITV HD, none of the Sky HD channels including the sports.
Naturally i was not hp with this so phoned saying i was mislead a bit and was thinking of cancelling. The lady on the phone spoke to her manager and sorted it so we get the full HD package for £5 extra a month

In Summary,

Virgin ~£70 per month

Sky £58 until Christmas then £11 line rental on top = £69 but with a recordable HD box, and full HD package.

Try the bolded bit if you go for it and wan`t HD

Good luck with whatever you choose...

**Damien** · 26-05-2010, 15:18

See I already have the TV with Sky. I like the look of the phone packages, the money saved from the inclusive international calls is awesome. But the phone line seems like a lot of hassle, I doubt I can get such a deal considering I am already a TV Customer.

Matty_ · 26-05-2010, 19:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by Damien

See I already have the TV with Sky. I like the look of the phone packages, the money saved from the inclusive international calls is awesome. But the phone line seems like a lot of hassle, I doubt I can get such a deal considering I am already a TV Customer.

Sorry Damien, my bad

I suppose you can but ask, you never know. Thing is if the BT line is still easily available i`m sure they could connect it back up easily. Trouble is the price

But seeing as your a "valued" customer, using several other services they provide they might just waive the re-connection fee!
Allthough on second thoughts maybe not for just the phone, maybe if it was broadband and phone, either way hassle em

**Damien** · 27-05-2010, 08:52

I checked and I pay about £30 on phone charges. This package: http://allyours.virginmedia.com/webs...ct.do?id=10533

Would save me £21 a month I think. Since it's always under 200 mins...

Matty_ · 27-05-2010, 11:40

Not sure, is the £30 on top of the line rental of £11.99 so you pay ~£42

Just wondered cuz it does say when you take a Virgin phone line at £11.99 (so it`d be £21). Still a good saving though

Sounds like a good option either way (as long as you stay under 200 mins)...