Not a bike related thread but bizarrely I do find myself trusting some of the advice and experiences given on this site (crackers I know) For those with 'recent' experience, could you tell me how life has been with Virgin media, both fibre and their TV services? They've literally just cabled my area and we have access to their 200mb fibre line if I wanted. To set the scene, I'm currently with Sky for my TV and BT for fibre and telephone. Sky is....well, Sky. It works, it's intuitive and although I don't subscribe to any of the movies, sports or even HD it provides us with every channel we need. We do have multiroom which I loathe paying for but needs must. BT has been somewhat of a rocky relationship since joining them a little under 12 months ago, the fibre speeds aren't great (21mb) but that's the line and probably the best I'll get. It doesn't do that well at streaming content via an Android media box I have but it just about gets there with a little buffering In BT'S defence they've offered me a reduced recontract offer of less than £9/month for the same fibre and have included the full BT sports hd package again for free, only on a 12 months contract. Ultimately if I add everything up what I currently pay and multiply by 18 months (stipulation of the current Virgin Big Kahuna bundle) it pretty much works out the same, technically £130 cheaper to stick with what I've got. What would I gain? 200mb fibre, Slightly more HD content and that's it. What would I lose (for the costs outlined)? Well I'd lose Sky Atlantic (although could probably stream) and I'd also lose the better multiroom facilities of being able to record as to have that feature with Virgin it'll add an extra £6/month (additional £108 per 18 months on top of the £130 already) Whilst the viability of having 200mb fibre is enticing, I'm not convinced of the tv services. I had an in store demo yesterday at a branch in Nottingham and frankly the user front end was horrendously slow and really laggy. The chap in the store said it was because of all the content they had downloaded on the Tivo box and the fact they're only running off a 70mb line due to being city centre based. That may well be true but I've read a few things about slow and stuttering menus online but nothing recent, is that just the way Virgin TV is going to be? It just seemed very clunky to navigate in comparison to Sky, almost as though they've tried very hard to be different but ultimately if it ain't broke don't fix it. The guy did say that you can have a 14 day cool off period but is that really going to be worthwhile trying?
Go with Virgin for the fibre, Sky for the TV. I used to before we moved. Sadly now not in a fibre area and on a good day can get 2mbps. Will say that I never had an issue with Virgin broadband though. The TV wasn't for me though.
We moved from 100mbps virgin broadband to 5mbps (on a good day) BT I'd take the virgin broadband package like a shot if it was available. We had the full HDTV package but since we moved we have Freeview & Netflix and don't really miss the additional channels
The problem is that its all or nothing . Whilst taking their fibre alone would be nice it makes it all far too expensive. They've very smartly packaged everything so the best way to buy is to go the whole hog. Im more concerned about their TV services than Fibre, ultimately even if the 200mb fibre only produced 100-150mb its still 5 - 7 times faster than what i have now
My sister is disabled and I have full power of attorney to deal with utilities and such like. She began to have problems with her Virgin installation and despite being registered on their system, I had huge issues getting things resolved. Can't talk to you, data protection act and all that. Whilst my situation is pretty unusual, their customer service was appalling. She is now with Sky and despite my personal antipathy towards them as a corporation, they have been very good. Andy
The downside of paying for big speed - 100Mb, 200Mb, whatever - is that whatever you are connecting becomes the bottleneck. For example, my broadband regularly hits 37Mb. However, when accessing shared certain Cloud resources, my maximum download rate doesn't get much more than 6Mb. The lower rate is due to limitations at the other end, in this case the Cloud. Big b/b speeds make sense only if you are accessing resources that themselves are capable of it, or in households where many family members are all downloading, surfing, etc at the same time.
I have all Virgin with fast broadband. Have now upgraded to a TiVo box with large storage capacity which you need for HD. Have added NowTV, which gives you Sky Movies cheap but needs the high speed broadband to work well. Netflix is great for Breaking Bad but most of the films on there are crap, so have got rid. Very happy with it.
Does the Tivo box lag and stutter? I've literally just come off the phone from the derby based branch as I'd intended to head there for a 2nd demo, as soon as I mentioned I'd be looking out for lag and delay he came clean and gave the same reason as the Nottingham branch Maybe I'm just being cynical but to have two stores both citing the same issue may not be coincidence, maybe it's just the way Virgin TV is?
I have had both sky and virgin for tv,defo a better picture quality on virgin,if it ever snowed or was really windy sky would have interference, to the extent that it could even stop recording programmes,and we live in london,not a windswept corner of the land. So virgin gives a much better picture. Virgin broadband by and large is fine, i have 3 teenagers in the house probably always streaming god only knows what etc. Sky box and controls far more intuitive than Virgin for sure, but i get my kids to do it all for me,they gotta have some uses! Yes the virgin box can be slow to select a certain function occasionaly,but it never interferes with the good quality audio visual that we get.
BT or sky for me. Just got fibre so have ordered BT. Still with Sky for the TV. I'm a heavy user so BT for the fact they don't throttle your usage. Having used Virgin, they throttle you back so much you may as well have ADSL. Both Sky & BT have no fair usage policy. Unlimited means unlimited. Plusnet looked good until I noticed their upload speed is only 1Mb on the slower package. 38Mb is my areas max now so no point me paying for the faster package. Just gone BT unlimited for £37 inc line rental
Much of a muchness.... I'm on sky for satellite and virgin for network, costs a bit more as I've got both services but ive got my reasons.... Personally I've always found hardware supplied by bt is usually supplied by the lowest bidder.... All the bt routers and what not I've worked on has been shite (but not worked on anything recently) virgin's router is ok but you can put it into "modem mode" and choose your own router then, which is nice... Ive been with both for the last 20 years or so, never really had any issues... I use a 7 year old dlink router with modified dd-wrt firmware and it covers 4 floors and a multitude of phones, tablets and consoles... And I've got an old 40's semi with brick internal walls. Virgin is essentially rf driven which means that if it goes past your door you will get the speed they say... Bt's as much as they push their "fibre service" is only fibre to the "pop".... Point of presence or exchange.... The final journey is in good old copper so the further away you are from the pop the slower it goes... Yep... I'm in IT for a job... Hope that helps damo, pm me if youve got any questions....
Virgin fiber is only to the box in the street. You stil only get normal cable to the house. I'm on the 200 package and the best speed I've recorded (wireless) is 145mbps usally I get about 110. The router however has the ability to transmit at 5g as well as 2g. Streaming films on the smart tv still buffets on 1080 hd.
Depends.. Virgin will run adsl service (and sub contract from bt). Their "cable service" uses what's called "siamese cable" which is an 8core rj15 cable and an rf cable for data services.
Virgin customer service were appalling when I was with them 5 years ago. Never again. Gone from Sky to BT infinity and a smart tv. Sky customer service were great. Only had to make 1 call to BT since initial setup. Was a bit miffed they added a charge to watch moto GP but will buy a video pass next year. Edited. Appealing vs appalling (damn iOS).
BT is mostly fibre up to your nearest green street cab. Copper from there. Virgin is fibre up to the nearest "distribution point" then coax cable to your house. Coax is better than copper twin cable (BT) and that's how they get 200Mbps. Their throttling however is abysmal so I will always steer clear. The virgin router is awful too. Like comfysofa, I also work in IT and telecommunications and use my own DD-WRT flashed equipment with multiple access points to cover the house, garage and garden. Any supplied router can be set to "modem only" by configuring things right. Plusnet routers are the worst. Cheap as chips and locked down tight. Can't even change the dhcp range or reserve internal IP's.
