Virgin Media revamps its bundles

[kafui]

Originally Posted by BenMcr

It's not that it's a loss of subscription, it's that the Collection is what it is - it comes with a second box

If you don't want a second box, then you'll have to build your services up to not include it

It ends up costing £13 more.

[passingbat]

Originally Posted by kafui

It ends up costing £13 more.

In that case, could you just have the second box installed in, say, a bedroom and just not connect it to a TV?

[Itshim]

Originally Posted by passingbat

In that case, could you just have the second box installed in, say, a bedroom and just not connect it to a TV?

Why not just tell him to leave it in the box & put it in cupboard ! In my case
he insisted on fitting it. As the V+ was moved we swapped it back
It was on for a around two weeks before we found it did not fit in with our viewing preferences & it was pushed to the least used m/c.

The deal I got meant I had to have the TiVo - which I did not want & I have no use for as second box ( Ok a other V+ would have been fine). So in a house two people I have a V+ ( & TV) a Tivo ( & TV with freeview) 2 freeview set up TVs & a CRTV with a Freeview/DVD player.

Take the money and run is my advise.

[spark001uk]

Hi guys, just to let you know they did give me the premiere collection, with no quarrels, so thanks for the advice!
Got another problem though- now im on 60mb, the superhub cannot sustain above about 35 to 38mb, i've just got too many neighbours on wireless, 26 to be exact!!!
Phoned VM, and they tried everything via remote access, no joy. So the guy then just said sorry there's nothing else we can do, and that was it!! Any ideas? Could pester them for a dual band dongle i suppose??

[boragthung]

This is quite a long post, sorry.

I have been with NTL - VM for 11 years now. I have always had the same 'size' since then which is basic Phone, L BB and XL TV. My original BB was 600Kb which was then upped to 2Mb then 4Mb and currently 10Mb. I had a standard Pace box originally which was swapped for a standard Samsung when problems developed. I have only ever had 1 box at a time and currently have the SA V+.

Probably about 5 years ago when adsl started to kick in and prices were dropping and NTL were changing package names, prices, etc I decided to ring up retentions. I had been paying around £58 /month for a long time and it was becoming apparent that I was paying over the odds as things did not seem to be adding up any more and I was struggling to pay.

At the time I remember my BB was £25 on its own and then TV and rental was added to that. One of my bugbears was that I hardly use the phone and it is only really there for occasional quick calls, emergencies and if I need to ring in sick to work. With BT I was on their light user tariff - this meant at the time for every 10p call I didn't make I would get a refund of about 12p (up to a quarterly limit of some amount), which meant with virtually no calls I would only pay a small rental. So I used this fact to enquire if NTL had a low user tariff similar - they didn't.

What I got through negotiation was a restructuring of my bill and I think basically I had been paying old prices for something that had now dropped in price but had not actually automatically received this price drop myself, which is a disgusting way to treat customers. I was told I would be given a £8.50 discount on phone for life (really I said, yes they said) as they had checked my usage and agreed I hardly used the phone.

With my new bills, instead of simply listing a bill with this costs this, that costs that and this is the total they had this convoluted way of adding in old prices then adjusting this by a magic 'loyalty' number to give the amount you should be paying. Another crazy way of doing things.

I cannot remember the precise amount but the combination of price adjustment from old to new and then my £8.50 'for life' discount dropped my total bill (at that time) to around the £38 -ish mark. A significant drop and an indication just how much I had been overcharged. I think what had happened was the BB had changed to £25 inclusive of rental so I had effectively been paying that rental amount twice for some time. I also got the std box swapped for a V+ box. I then started ebilling as well which at that time meant a discount of £1.

There have been quite a few increases since. One despicable one is the eBilling. This discount was supposed to change to £1.50 (my bills always stated £1 though). Then they changed things - prices include eBilling and paper Bills will be charged £1.50 extra. So what they did here was a back door rise by eliminating the discount, while at the same time also increasing TV and rental costs. Not sure what the current situation is with paper bills but those people are certainly being hammered.

Anyway to make a long story a bit longer and get a bit more to the point of my post, I have been looking at these latest 'bundles'. The Premiere one for around £59 gives 60 Mb BB, Tivo, extra box, TV XL and Phone.

I currently have 10 Mb BB (MY VM page says this will be doubled to 20 Mb after July), basic (weekend) phone and XL TV with one SA V+ box. My costs for this are £32.50 + £13.90 = £46.40. The only way I can compare costs is to this breakdown from the VM pages: BB 30 £14.50, Phone £13.90, TV £26.50 giving total of £54.90. This happens to tally with my £8.50 discount (which I honestly thought had been completely eroded by price increases). So I am getting 10 Mb instread of 30 Mb I conclude.

My current modem is the NTL 250 (upgraded from the original Terajet). I have my own 'N' Router but its ethernet is only 10/100 rather than gigabit. My main computer is hardwired along with Blu ray with the wireless for everything else. Actually I have a separate gigabit NIC in this PC connecting to a gigbit switch and a gigabit NAS to that as well before connecting the switch to the router.

So firstly my free upgrade - will thiis only be to 20 or will it actually be 30? Will this mean a Superhub being sent to me? What I have gathered with the Superhub is it rubbish for wireless which is needed at the other end of the house upstairs wihich works well with my own router. I need hardwired downstairs next to the inlet. Putting SH into modem mode to use my router disables the extra gigabit ports on the SH which means I would still neeed to use my gigabit switch for NAS and my PC for transfers. I don't have enough plug sockets for this - currently use 16 as it is with all my AV stuff.

Looking at costs for what you get:
My current !0 Mb, XL TV, V+, Phone = £46.40 with my 'life discount'. This would be £54.90 full whack but with 30Mb not 10 Mb.

The Premiere is £58.90 for 60 Mb, XL TV, Tivo, Vbox, Phone. That's £4 difference for extra 30 Mb speed and Tivo compared to full whack. You can get 100 Mb instead for £66.15

My VM tells me I can do these upgrades: upgrade to 60 mb from £5, upgrade to Tivo from £11.50.

Why does it say 'from'? Also if you add it up it I would pay 46.40 + 5 + 11.50 = £62.90 with my life discount or comparing full whack 62.90+ 8.50 = £71.40. These figures just don't add up comparing to the £58.90 for this Premiere package or £66.15 with Prem 100.

I would be interested in the Premiere package but I don't want to lose my discount. I cannot afford installation costs either. I currently have my Brother and his Fiance living with me but they marry in 4 months and will be looking at moving into their own home so the extra box is only really useful until such time as they leave then I will be on my own again and I will again be on the bread line.

I am concerned at the issues with the SH and the Tivo. To my mind all the Tivo really means to me is bigger capacity hard drive - the rest just seem gimmicks you pay for that don't sound like they work 100%. You also lose the background archive to DVD recorder.

Does it sound like I should be getting more for my money or paying less for what I get? Could I ring up make sure I keep my life discount and negotiate some kind of upgrade?

Premiere 58.90 less 8.50 = £51.40 with Tivo. Tivo costs 5 + 6.50 = 11.50 as extra box. So should not having Tivo and keeping my V+ box only, uprading to 60 Mb really have me paying 58.90 - 11.50 = 47.40 then less my life discount 8.50 = £38.90?

Can you see how the figures for their products are all over the place? I am getting more flumaxed the more I add things up. Are we all being ripped off (well that's a stupid question LOL)?

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by boragthung

So firstly my free upgrade - will thiis only be to 20 or will it actually be 30?

It will be 20Mbit

I would be interested in the Premiere package but I don't want to lose my discount.

If you go for the Premiere Collection you would pay the advertised price. The current additional discount is only for the services you have - it will not apply if you change to a Collection

Does it sound like I should be getting more for my money or paying less for what I get? Could I ring up make sure I keep my life discount and negotiate some kind of upgrade?

Again, the 'Life' discounts only apply to the deal you currently have, there is no guarantee you will keep it if you change any services

[boragthung]

My life discount I was assured at the time was for life even when I queried it and not some fixed term and is related to phone and my low usage of it (and my habits will never change).

How can you explain all the cost discrepencies I outline and if I am only going to get 20 Mb will the NTL 250 handle this? I am tempted as I say by going for faster BB as it seems I can go from 10 Mb -> 60 Mb for an extra £5. But that would mean a SH and all the problems that might bring.

Added to this I have already posted elsewhere about another problem. Last Friday I noticed a load of cables going straight from my outside box to my neighbour. Talking to them they had an install 3 weeks previous and was told the installers would return within a week to do it properly. Nothing happended. I had an engineer round on Monday because I have had problems with my box and he replaced isolators and splitters. He knocked my neighbours door and told them he would make a note for their install to be sorted out properly and removed from my box and they should hear back with no need for them to ring.

Speaking to my neighbour this morning he had not heard a thing so I told him he would have to ring and get it done. It remains to be seen what happens but I might have to ring retentions myself if there is no action and get it sorted out myself as I am not at all happy with the shambolic and cheek of this manner of install.

[Scurra]

Originally Posted by boragthung

basically I had been paying old prices for something that had now dropped in price but had not actually automatically received this price drop myself, which is a disgusting way to treat customers.

Oh yes. The only people they are interested in are new customers and people who threaten to leave.
And their new "transparent" bills are still as ridiculous as before except that now you can't work out which bits are which; it's all grouped together. (And yes, I noticed that sneaky price increase by transferring the cost to paper bills.)

The really irritating bit is that I get more "junk" mail from Virgin trying to offer me a fantastic new deal for signing up with them than I ever get as an actual contact to me as a real customer - other than being told that my ebill is ready, the only message I have had from them in the last year was that messed up one that tried to tell me I was getting a superduper speed upgrade. It's almost as though they want me to leave.

[TbGbe]

Trying to compare individual service costs with bundle totals will always lead to confusion.
The straightforward way is to compare what you pay for your bundle with what each collection costs.

You have TV XL, M phone and BB(20)

If you compare with Essential collection, you have add TV XL which would bring it to 87.90 per month !!

Better to compare with Premiere ( TV XL, Phone M, BB 60) which will cost 58.90 per month. However, you will have to argue about installation (SuperHub, TiVo) as you are an existing customer. But you could keep V+ as the second box (i.e. TiVo + V+).

Some people say they have managed to get SuperHub for 20.00 (self install) and "free upgrade from 10(20)Mb to 30Mb" but losing any discounts.

[boragthung]

I am considering something like the Premiere. With my current set up, My VM says upgrade to 60 Mb for £5 so just keeping my V+ as it is and upgrading BB would cost £51.40 with my discount. So comparing Premiere to that does make Premiere look good value with the added tivo for that extra 7.50 on top of that.

But then when you consider what I am paying at the moment for 10 Mb soon to be 20 Mb and compare that to the current packages it makes my set up actually expensive/lesser value and to then think 'for just a bit more, I can get much better' - which would be entirely the aim and they are achieving that.

All providers are trying to get maximum £ per head. So by VM ncreasing speeds and adding a few things but charging a bit more to get that new bundle does exactly that. They won't drop the prices for those who have lower speeds as then they wouldn't be increasing that £ per head, would they? They want every one to realise that upgrading represents a better value. If instead there was 30 Mb is 14.50 but if you only want 10 Mb it will be a fiver. Too many people would stay as they are, reduce costs and not increase that £ per head.

Which is why I have to consider upgrading to get value, or trying to negotiate a reduced cost for what I have or moving entirely if need be (definitely a last resort though as I like cable).

Anyway before I consider any upgrades I am waiting to see that my Neighbours install is correctly done and disconnected from mine. Alternatively I might have to push that along myself by talking to retentions if he does not get action taken himself and quick.

My reservations lie in the performance of the SH and the quality of the Tivo. I have often read that it does not have the same picture quality as V+ and it also lacks the archiving function which I like on V+ (apart from the fact it is a shappy composite output).

The only problem I really read about the SH is the rubbish wireless. I know the SH can be set in modem only, but you then lose those megabit ports as everything would go through my own router which is 100 Mb. Ideally I would like to replace 3 plugs being used currently (modem, megabitswitch, router) with the one SH.

I don't know if it is possible to use the SH as is, wire main PC and NAS to it for the megabit tranfers and then also wire in another router to act wirelessly so wireless clients connect through that into the SH?

The only other option I can think of would be to use the SH on its own, ignore the wireless and drill lots of holes in walls and hardwire everything instead. That would be a bit awkward and would also add the cabling cost. It would be the most secure and fastest option though.

[Dash: CF noob]

Originally Posted by boragthung

I don't know if it is possible to use the SH as is, wire main PC and NAS to it for the megabit tranfers and then also wire in another router to act wirelessly so wireless clients connect through that into the SH?

Yeah thats how mine is set up with another router plugged in to SH giving me 2 wireless networks.

[boragthung]

Originally Posted by Dash: CF noob

Yeah thats how mine is set up with another router plugged in to SH giving me 2 wireless networks.

Do you have to change the 2nd router settings as access point or would it function as it is currently set up - mine is in 'lazy mode' and a second router upstairs can then link to it I think in bridge mode. Or set it to client mode? I have Tenda rounters. I would have to do some research to understand what to do I reckon.

[Huss73]

Hi

I currently pay about £74 for XXL broadband, XL TV and i think M phone. This includes a V+HD box plus a V+ box upstairs.

Do VM offer some of these new deals for existing customers? would i be able to contact them and enquire?

My dad has just taken up the prem offer i think. Upto 60mb BB, V+HD box, Tivo box etc for around 55 a month

[mr_bo]

Originally Posted by Huss73

Do VM offer some of these new deals for existing customers? would i be able to contact them and enquire?

I'd be interested in upgrading to the vip50 if there was an attractive deal like there is one for new customers too

[boragthung]

Just got an email with my latest bill and it has the 3.50 increase on it so now my basic pay out is 48.90, which confirms as I had originally thought that my so called life discount had been eroded away over time by constant price increases.

The Premere package is really a no-brainer now at 58.90 for Basic phone, XLTV, Tivo + extra box, 60 Mb BB compared to my 48.90 for Basic phone, XLTV, V+, 10 Mb BB. That's an extra box (Tivo) + another 50 Mb for a tenner.