sky or virgin

[Ch3tan]

Righto, we've been with Virgin since the telewest days. I'm getting annoyed at how poor the service has become tbh, restrictions on broadband, poor uptake of HD services.

Now we get a lot from them, but pay around £85 a month, sky have offered us a similar service for £67 a month. Virgin retentions have offered this as well.

Not sure which way to go, I can't afford to have a separate broadband provider (wanted to go o2), as we want the bills to be below £70 a month.

I hear bad things about sky broadband as well.

So opinions? And anyone on sky tell me what they pay and what they get, it would be helpful.

 

[old.user4556]

I can't advise on either mate as I'm a tight Scotsman who wouldn't pay for either, but my mate who moved to London regrets going with Virgin due to limitations about what Sky HD channels he can get. Don't quote me on it, but I think he said something about not getting sports or all sports channels on Virgin. I may be misinformed though.

 

[Ch3tan]

Yeah you only get bbc HD, channel4 HD, ESPN HD, FX HD and some discovery HD on Virgin.

 

[old.user4556]

Sounds toss, I'd be punting for Sky personally in that case.

 

[Ch3tan]

It's the broadband that is worrying me, I know virgins has turned tosh, but I like cable BB, never had ADSL. Also sky's BB is meant to be pretty poor as well.

Another question, if I go to ADSL, can I still use my rather expensive netgear router, even though it is a normal router (not a adsl modem/router). Can I just connect it to the modem they give me as I can with cable?

 

[old.user4556]

I don't see why not Chet, my mate used to be on Sky BB so I will drop him a mail and ask him. The Sky router was just a rebadged Netgear router anyway when he had it.

I used my Netgear router on my O2 BB until it died, it was very much a simple case of plugging it in and making sure the credentials on the router were correct (that was the case with Pipex anyway, I don't think that O2 even needs credentials). There are some other obvious things you might need/want to setup including DNS servers and such.

Edit: re-read your post, it's just a router? Not an ADSL modem / router combo? I dunno Chet, I'd expect you'll need to use a DSL modem .

 

[Moriath]

virgin cause i love their 50mb unlimited cable broad band mwahahahaha

 

[Zenith.UK]

If you have a HDTV, go with Sky because of the HD channels.

Do you have a BT phone line (one not on cable)? You'll need one for ADSL and Sky want their box hooked up to the phone for the first year.

 

[nath]

Can I just connect it to the modem they give me as I can with cable?

Yes. Run an ethernet cable from the Sky modem in to your cable modem socket - it'll work fine (may take a little settings tinkering).

 

[Bob007]

I moved from Virgin to Sky about 5 months ago. Best thing i ever did. Not had any problems with it since day 1 and the added bonus of cutting my bill down and increasing my channels avail.

As for the telephone ion line for 12 months thing. Unplug it. They'll never find out. Didn't for me.

You can use your router if as said you plug it into one of the switch ports of the Sky supplied router. Might have to tweak a few settings in the sky router incase of IP clash in DHCP servers. But you couldn't use it to replace it unless you brought a dedicated adsl modem with ethernet port (like this) on.

 

[chipper]

am with sky and the broadband is superb never had a problem yet with it get good connection speeds and not had 1 bollockin off em yet for heavy dl usage

 

[Raven]

I was on Virgin (NTL) when I lived down south and never really had any problems with them service wise, though when things did go wrong their customer services were a nightmare.

Can't get it where we are so are with Sky, very good service and the package overall is top notch.

 

[DaGaffer]

Unless you have restrictions on putting a dish up, I'd generally recommend Sky over Virgin. The broadband bit is UKOnline, and I certainly never had any problems/restrictions with it. I've had billing problems in the past with both Sky and NTL (Sky didn't cancel my account when I moved and started sending debt collection letters immediately, which pissed me right off as I didn't get an apology or comp when I proved it was their fault), but I think all providers are shite in this regard (don't get me started about BT).

One note about sports packages; there's been an OFCOM ruling this week which means Sky will have to wholesale all of their sports services to other providers, so any differences in package you see right now may change in the next few weeks.

 

[Ch3tan]

Ahh thanks gaffer, was waiting for news of that ruling. So this now means we should in theory be able to buy sky sports from BT, freesat etc.

Does it also mean they have to provide their sky sports hd and red button services to other providers?

sports is the main reason we have anything other than freeview at the moment, so this could be a big factor in what we choose.

 

[DaGaffer]

Ah, sorry, my mistake, the detailed proposals went to OFCOM this week, but the outcome's not due for another couple of weeks. But the expected outcome is wholesale to other networks, with the carrot that Sky will be able to retail on Freeview/Freesat.

Article Here

 

[MYstIC G]

I never had any problems with Sky broadband mate. The only reason I switched to O2 was they jacked the price. However I was on the top end max package and I don't know from the thread what Sky are offering you in broadband terms.

You most probably can stick your uber router into the Sky router that you'll get but I would avoid doing so if possible. You will have to use the Sky router to connect to the ADSL as part of the T&C's and because they remote update them so if you use something else, it can get fried.