Leaving Virgin after 6 years

Relentless81 · 22 Apr 2021 at 15:26

Hello,

In my last and current house we've had Virgin internet and it's been fine apart from the odd outage but the ever increasing price which is now at £48 being best offer after speaking to their customer services for 200mb and basic TV

If I hadn't had called they would have happily charged me considerably more for the 200mb and basic TV because my 12 month deal expires next month

Enough is enough and I've cancelled with 30 days to find a new ISP, the price will continue to go up until I'm paying who knows what

Has anyone moved from virgin to another ISP and have had a positive experience and can recommend them please?

Internet is used for all the usual stuff, gaming, streaming Netflix and Amazon, working from home. I have mesh WiFi so don't need a decent router. We need terrestrial TV access with pause and record too as the TiVo box will be going and our Ariel is knackered so Freeview is no good.

If anyone can share experiences of who to avoid and who is worth looking at I would appreciate it, thanks

Haze · 22 Apr 2021 at 15:55

Zen

/thread

But personally, I have never had a problem with BT, sky, or virgin. I am using Three 4g though, as I live in the sticks, and BT was giving 1/2 mb download speed

Caged · 22 Apr 2021 at 16:01

The easiest thing might be to wait for VM to call you back and offer a better deal. You're not getting terrestrial TV with pausing and resuming without an aerial, though if you pick a BT TV package they will come and install one. The only other TV option is Sky.

This is all sort of academic at the moment as your internet options may be ADSL or Virgin cable, at which point the advice will be to wait for a retentions call.

Avalon · 22 Apr 2021 at 17:36

Relentless81 said:
Hello,

In my last and current house we've had Virgin internet and it's been fine apart from the odd outage but the ever increasing price which is now at £48 being best offer after speaking to their customer services for 200mb and basic TV

If I hadn't had called they would have happily charged me considerably more for the 200mb and basic TV because my 12 month deal expires next month

Enough is enough and I've cancelled with 30 days to find a new ISP, the price will continue to go up until I'm paying who knows what

Has anyone moved from virgin to another ISP and have had a positive experience and can recommend them please?

Internet is used for all the usual stuff, gaming, streaming Netflix and Amazon, working from home. I have mesh WiFi so don't need a decent router. We need terrestrial TV access with pause and record too as the TiVo box will be going and our Ariel is knackered so Freeview is no good.

If anyone can share experiences of who to avoid and who is worth looking at I would appreciate it, thanks

If you are otherwise happy, and that new customers have regularly been able to get basic TV/Tel/500-600Mbit/and a 5GB sim for circa £50-55 with £120-130 cash back at various points, you may be better off waiting for the call back (assuming VM have your mobile number).

If you do move, then I’d get booking ASAP as you’re looking at a potential 3-4 weeks if it’s a new line job. First up have a look at the BT wholesale checker and see what you are estimated to receive (whoever you go with will essentially be the same): https://www.broadbandchecker.btwholesale.com/

Now when you know what you’re looking at speed wise, then I tend to find Sky are relatively cheap for a combined package, but if you prefer NowTV offer reasonable streaming options and are also owned by Sky. Use Quidco for the cash back and it can work out quite cheaply. The only concern with Sky and NowTV is you need a router that supports DHCP60/61, so your mesh would need to run in bridge mode rather than router mode. Failing that Plusnet are BT owned, UK support and cheap, you can still add Netflix etc. and obviously iplayer etc are things.

Relentless81 · 22 Apr 2021 at 17:57

Not sure on Zen I've dealt with them through work in the past although it was a while back it wasn't a good experience and I haven't noticed them come up as available in my area but didn't particularly look out for them I'll have proper look

I was put through to retentions on my call to VM so already spoken to them, they have my number but I don't expect a call back from them to offer a better deal

@Avalon that's good advice thanks, I'm concerned about the 3/4 week wait that's not good I didn't expect that and could be a problem

The router issue is a problem too I like my mesh setup the way it is it's easy and it works great.

I've not really looked into NowTV before but I think that's the only thing other than SkyTV and virgin that'll do what I need

Oops, what have I gotten myself into!

Journey · 22 Apr 2021 at 19:43

Relentless81 said:
I'm concerned about the 3/4 week wait that's not good I didn't expect that and could be a problem

If all you need is internet access for that time, get a 30 day Smarty Unlimited SIM drop it in your phone, (or an old phone if you have one) turn on tethering/Wi-Fi sharing and away you go, signal dependant of course. Costs about £18, no caps or restrictions and you get 5G now too!

APM · 22 Apr 2021 at 22:15

How is your aerial knackered?

Relentless81 · 23 Apr 2021 at 07:34

Journey said:
If all you need is internet access for that time, get a 30 day Smarty Unlimited SIM drop it in your phone, (or an old phone if you have one) turn on tethering/Wi-Fi sharing and away you go, signal dependant of course. Costs about £18, no caps or restrictions and you get 5G now too!

Thats an idea if I get desperate thanks

APM said:
How is your aerial knackered?

Very bad signal quality, I think its the cable that runs up to it, it looks to be in poor condition

Rannoch · 23 Apr 2021 at 07:52

Relentless81 said:
Not sure on Zen I've dealt with them through work in the past although it was a while back it wasn't a good experience and I haven't noticed them come up as available in my area but didn't particularly look out for them I'll have proper look

I was put through to retentions on my call to VM so already spoken to them, they have my number but I don't expect a call back from them to offer a better deal

@Avalon that's good advice thanks, I'm concerned about the 3/4 week wait that's not good I didn't expect that and could be a problem

The router issue is a problem too I like my mesh setup the way it is it's easy and it works great.

I've not really looked into NowTV before but I think that's the only thing other than SkyTV and virgin that'll do what I need

Oops, what have I gotten myself into!

I found with NowTV if you sign up for a trial then cancel it they offer you a deal soon after your trial expires. They offered me this deal hours after my trial expired. 4 months of Cinema & Entertainment for £39.99 Was £87.92

Hypersonix · 23 Apr 2021 at 08:11

I’ve been with Virgin (broadband only) for 10 years plus but have been paying £50 for a Vivid 200 line!

We are about to move house to an area with no Virgin fibre so I’ve called and left.
I think now I’ll be lucky to get a 65meg line, looking at the options now. Either way it should be half the price previously paid.

stokecity_m · 23 Apr 2021 at 08:30

I've just renewed my contract for 18 months.

Basic tv
Telephone line
500mb internet
5gb sim

£53/month

You should be able to get the same.

Hypersonix · 23 Apr 2021 at 09:46

stokecity_m said:
I've just renewed my contract for 18 months.

Basic tv
Telephone line
500mb internet
5gb sim

£53/month

You should be able to get the same.

I’m not interested in the sim, phone line or tv, I just need decent broadband speed at a sensible price. I just cannot get it where we are moving to.

Relentless81 · 23 Apr 2021 at 12:59

Looks like NowTV isnt what I'm after either. The wife wants to record terrestrial TV and easy access to Cbeebies for the kids. Might have to go with Sky but gutted I'll have to switch my Mesh to AP mode and it looks like max speed is 65.

I could call Virgin back and drop to 100MB but I just dont want them to have my business to be honest

WJA96 · 23 Apr 2021 at 14:51

Relentless81 said:
Looks like NowTV isnt what I'm after either. The wife wants to record terrestrial TV and easy access to Cbeebies for the kids. Might have to go with Sky but gutted I'll have to switch my Mesh to AP mode and it looks like max speed is 65.

I could call Virgin back and drop to 100MB but I just dont want them to have my business to be honest

You probably won't notice a lot of difference. To get the terrestrial antenna fixed will cost £100-ish and then a cheapish freeview box will do all the recording etc.

I went from 70Mbps to 300Mbps to 900Mbps and other than it takes 2-3 minutes to download a movie to my ipad vs. fairly instantaneous I really don't notice the extra speed. VDSL is really pretty usable in almost all situations for me.

Relentless81 · 23 Apr 2021 at 15:49

WJA96 said:
You probably won't notice a lot of difference. To get the terrestrial antenna fixed will cost £100-ish and then a cheapish freeview box will do all the recording etc.

I went from 70Mbps to 300Mbps to 900Mbps and other than it takes 2-3 minutes to download a movie to my ipad vs. fairly instantaneous I really don't notice the extra speed. VDSL is really pretty usable in almost all situations for me.

I didn't notice dropping from 500 to 200 a few years ago and we only stream at 1080p and I don't game online as much as I used to

I'll see what I can find with Sky and then ring virgin back and check the cost for 100mb

Hypersonix · 23 Apr 2021 at 16:14

Relentless81 said:
Looks like NowTV isnt what I'm after either. The wife wants to record terrestrial TV and easy access to Cbeebies for the kids. Might have to go with Sky but gutted I'll have to switch my Mesh to AP mode and it looks like max speed is 65.

I could call Virgin back and drop to 100MB but I just dont want them to have my business to be honest

You could always go for a Freesat box if you have a dish already?

APM · 23 Apr 2021 at 18:06

I'd sort the aerial out,once you have a decent freeview signal you'll have a lot more available to you.

Have you tried re-terminating and connections that you can reach easily?

james.miller · 23 Apr 2021 at 18:35

Things i would consider:

- Don't move to another ISP expecting them to behave any differently. They all still put new customers above existing customers.
- You will have to fix your aerial if you move to anyone other than sky unless you go full internet based such as NowTv and...
- NowTv doesnt allow you to record live tv. Most of the nowTv solutions do support pausing tv in some fashion however.
- Everyone other than Virgin send their on-demand over your regular internet connection. This can cause problems if you dont have a decent connection available (>30Mb)
- With the exception of Sky, who send their HD content over the satellite connection, everyone else also sends most of their HD content over your internet connection also. So, for example, if you go with BT freeview, most of the HD content and all of the on-demand will share your broadband's bandwidth. and if you've got a couple of devices it's noticeable.

Personally, I've been back and forth between most of them and out of all the over the providers, i'd take sky every time. I'd take Virgin over sky if it was ever made available here.

Relentless81 · 23 Apr 2021 at 18:38

Hypersonix said:
You could always go for a Freesat box if you have a dish already?

It's built into the TV and I tried it out when we had an old sky dish on the house but it was pants, thousands of rubbish channels and hard to navigate. Not sure if it's the software on the TV or not but the dish is gone now.

APM said:
I'd sort the aerial out,once you have a decent freeview signal you'll have a lot more available to you.

Have you tried re-terminating and connections that you can reach easily?

Yeah tried it a while back, it's one of the reasons I got the basic virgin TV package so I didn't have to mess with the Arial but might be time to sort it now

Relentless81 · 23 Apr 2021 at 18:51

james.miller said:
Things i would consider:

- Don't move to another ISP expecting them to behave any differently. They all still put new customers above existing customers.
- You will have to fix your aerial if you move to anyone other than sky unless you go full internet based such as NowTv and...
- NowTv doesnt allow you to record live tv. Most of the nowTv solutions do support pausing tv in some fashion however.
- Everyone other than Virgin send their on-demand over your regular internet connection. This can cause problems if you dont have a decent connection available (>30Mb)
- With the exception of Sky, who send their HD content over the satellite connection, everyone else also sends most of their HD content over your internet connection also. So, for example, if you go with BT freeview, most of the HD content and all of the on-demand will share your broadband's bandwidth. and if you've got a couple of devices it's noticeable.

Personally, I've been back and forth between most of them and out of all the over the providers, i'd take sky every time. I'd take Virgin over sky if it was ever made available here.

Stuff I didn't know cheers. I'll look at Sky prices and call virgin back on Monday to compare the two and just go with whoever works out cheapest