What do I gain?

[djchapple]

This may not be the best place for this post but I cannot find a forum for posts on packages.

I am currently with Sky and I get nearly 6 Mb broadband, all free phone calls to UK landlines and several countries overseas and 4 TV packages, all for around £31/week.

I am thinking of changing to VM on 10 Mb broadband, M+ TV and XL telephone.

I can do this with a cash back of £150 (£3/week for a 12 month contract).

Do I gain much, if anything in making this change?

I am only a couple of hundred yards (or should that be metres) from my local cabinet. What is the likely speed I will get and how much is it likely to vary during the day and evening?

I appreciate that this may be like asking how ling is a piece of string but any information that can be given will be gratefully received.

[webcrawler2050]

Of course, you will gain *alot* if you look at it like this..

Sky, provides ADSL - throught he phone line and generally on a poor backbone and no doubt the contention ratio will be 50:1 - no doubt, you will never *ever* get anything decent from an ADSL service. Now, with Virgin, you are on a Fibre Optic backbone and you will get pretty much bang on, the service you pay for you. I would personally and this is personally, move everything to VM if I could..

[haydnwalker]

webcrawler... VMs service is still contended, though not quite in the same way as ADSL is and probably at much less than 50:1.

Overall, if you want a Broadband service where it doesn't matter if you are quite far from the exchange then Cable is the one to go for. However, there is still traffic management in place (but you can still download as much as you like, but they might slow you down if you hit certain trigger points).

With cable you can be a 200m from the street cabinet and you'd get the same 10mb as you would if your computer was 50m from the street cabinet (dependent on cable quality).

The TV service with VM is only Fair in my opinion and Skys is pretty good.

[webcrawler2050]

I'm fully aware, of VM services being contended - the point being, the VM service, even with contention, can still provide a better service..

[Matth]

Well, you'll need to add something else for the overseas calls, not sure that any of the VM offers are comparable, and of course, you can't use indirect providers.

Actually, can you use Vonage with Virginmedia, can't see why not?

Virginmedia's Phone XL is £7.95 more than M, for unlimited UK, while Vonage is £5.99, £6.99 for UK + USA/Canada, £7.99 for a 15 country "popular" package. It's not an alternate call provider, it's phone to Voip.

The phone line, the overcharging on non-geo numbers and the inability to use alternate call providers is the weak link in VM's offerings, why else are most of their deals dependent on taking a phone line - it's the lame duck.