House phone, broadband, mobile

[Keith Scarfe]

I have been looking into changing suppliers and 'Virgin Media' looks good. The deal looks great, in fact it looks to good to be true, which generally means it is, and will thus either be crap service, or the price will increase when you are captured with hidden extras.

Has anyone on here switched to Virgin media?

I spend far too much on phones and need to change. I am currently spending £100 a month   ; BT for house phone and broadband and O2 200 for mobiles (2). The Virgin package is £30 for everything (1 mobile). I will prob get pay as you go for the other mobile.

What do you think? My dad and a neighbor went to talk talk for their house phone and broadband and they are utter ****e, I would never use them and this is putting me off going away from BT to another supplier. BT and O2 are very good but expensive – you get what you pay for I guess. Is the virgin broadband ok for service? What about the virgin network for mobiles is the coverage ok for this? Are there hidden extras like expensive calls outside those included in the plan?

Thanks for any advice.

Keith.

[langy]

I'm using Virgin BB as I type. I've had the 2mb connection for a while now, it seems to be OK, but does 'freeze' some times (although that may be my ageing laptop )

I have seen the 3 for £30 deal as well, but I already have a recordable freeview box so don't need the TV. I may get the sim card for the mobile once my current contract ends so would be interested in Virgin mobiles coverage.

HTH

Sean

[adhawkins]

I've been with NTL for Cable Broadband and telephone for ages. The change to Virgin Media hasn't been without problems on the customer service side. Also, their billing system is a joke (I don't think I've had a correct bill for the last 12 or 18 months).

Technically the broadband and phone service is fine though, although I guess you'll probably be going ADSL?

Andy

[miserableoldgit]

No idea about the service quality, but you will only get the full benefit of 3 for£30 if your street is wired for cable.  If not you still have to pay BT line rental which bangs another £11 per month on th bill.  Still could be good value even then.

[The Irv]

My folks were with Telewest/NTL (now part of Virgin media), they never had a correct bill in all the time they were with them.

Every bill had numbers on which were unknown to them and at stupid times like 3-4 am and they were even billed for calls apparently made when they were at work and the house was empty, most of them were for only a few seconds but they all add up over a month, and trying to get them to correct the bill was a nightmare by all accounts.

They went back to BT in the end.

Steve

[Muttleys V8]

I may get the sim card for the mobile once my current contract ends so would be interested in Virgin mobiles coverage.

Virgin use T Mobile as their network.

Coverage OK but not as good as O2 or Voda

[funbobby]

Dump yer house phone - why use one if you have a mobile and get Sky Plus for TV and Broadband yer pikey!

Anyone else is just plain crap IME.

[boris]

Dump yer house phone - why use one if you have a mobile and get Sky Plus for TV and Broadband yer pikey!

Anyone else is just plain crap IME.

I dont think im wrong in saying that to get sky broadband you have to have a BT phoneline which adds £11 to your sky bill which makes it something around £40 per month.

Thats still cheaper than the £100 mentioned at the top by along way so could be worth considering.

With sky i believe there is a long wait/setup time for their broadband as it is in such high demand, this will probably mean that the connection speed is significantly less than what they quote on their website.

Regarding Virgin mobile coverage, my girlfriend and her family use virgin mobile and have no complaints. As previously stated their coverage isnt the best, but its not far enough away to make that much of a difference.

Virgin's packages look to be very good value, but you need to think about what you need to take advantage of the offers. As already stated above, you need to live in an area with cable to make use of the TV offer. The mobile offer is a 300 mins and 300 text package so if you use your mobile alot then you will pay extra for it. The broadband, in my experience is good service as far as connection and speeds go, but their customer service is a bit of a joke and will get frustrating if you have any problems. The home phone package is just like all the other ones out there except with this one you dont have to pay BT for line rental which saves a little each month.

I think thats how i understand all their small print anyway, just dont take what ive said as 100% accurate!!!

[nre]

I switched to madasafish in March, been pleased so far, good customer service when I needed to query something, and prices ok too.  It's currently £11.99 for first 6 months, then £17.99, and £9.99 for line rental inc off peak calls, plus there's a referral scheme which will earn you £15 plus you can have half of the £30 that I'll earn for referring you...  I make that £22.48 per month on average for the first year which I think is ok for BB & phone line...

You get a free domain name too so don't have to have a joebloggs@madasafish email addy, you can choose any unregistered .co.uk or .org.uk domain for free.

Also you get a proper router for free (not a naff usb modem) and can upgrade to wireless for £25

Send me a pm if anyone wants the referral code... (It can take up to 3 months to get the credit btw)

Ta, Neil

[Hammy]

Hi I've Virgin media - used to be NTLworld but has been taken over by Virgin.  

I've got the "whole lot" (don't recall the package name)  HD cable TV with 3 tuner HD recorder (record 2 programs whilst watching a third) , second independant box upstairs, films and sports,  land line Dog and Bone with "free" calls, some  mobile free minutes (which haven't bothered with)  and 20MB broadband (twenty) which is nice and quick and has no drop out problems.  also handfull of email addresses ( i've used up 4) and 50 Mb web space.

Had a problem with the modem in that it would do the speed - they came out and changed it without any problems ( its a Ethernet type not USB) , During the install/recent upgrade  I wanted cable runs  in positions I wanted, again no problem.

Works fine no real problems at all, £85/month; but I now wear glasses. There are download limits - something like 6GB a day in peak times ( evening), which if exceed they slow the interent to, I think 5MB, for 4 hours

9/10 good result

[steve_m]

If Virgin works OK then it's fine but if they get your bill wrong, change your package or the BB stops working due to a fault then you may as well get ready for months of problems.

I used to rate them highly until they started over charging me, could never talk to somebody who coud do anything about it, then BB stopped working occassionally and from that point on I couldn't get to talk to anybody who could do anything to fix it or bill be correctly.

It took 18 months to get them to take the direct debit from the correct account, they only managed to do that when the old account was closed and they stopped getting their money.

I gave notive to terminate the contract in January in writing and so far, they have ignored me - I have about 15 acknowledgement letters they have sent me in reponse to my letters but not a single letter or telephone call regardig the problem or the termination.

Would recommend you steer clear of Virgin.

[slippy]

NTL now Virgin Media are going through a transition period, NTL originally bought loads of legacy areas and tried to migrate them all on to one web based system which caused and is still causing BIG ISSUE's, I used to work for them so know how things work behind the scenes and it still amazes me today how they can be so spectacularly w**k on the customer services side of things and I always keep an eye on my bills.

That said I have no doubt they will get there in the end and I do have their BB, DIGI TV and Telelphone and all work fine just don't press the red button accidentaly when watching TV

[stevebubs]

As with all these places, if all goes swimmingly then you'll have no issues.

From personal experience, VM broadband is great IF you're in a cabled area. If not then you're reliant on (I think) a resold BT connection until they move to Cable & Wireless' (formerly Bulldog) LLU infrastructure later this year.

Stephen

PS Technically, the CW-provided and BT-provided service should be on a par with each other.

[stevebubs]

BTW the only reason I left VM (nee NTL) was due to their inability to come and fix the line that they had buried so shallowly that the lawnmower cut straight through it.

[slippy]

BTW the only reason I left VM (nee NTL) was due to their inability to come and fix the line that they had buried so shallowly that the lawnmower cut straight through it.

VM (Nee NTL) use contractors and most of the f*****s arrive on Horse back wearing spurs    I once heard a story of a contractor running a cable over a wheely bin