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All the recent news and discussion about Discovery+ and Eurosport etc I've been prompted to start looking at moving from Virgin to Sky for my internet/TV . I'm reconciled to losing Eurosport whatever I decide as I'm not prepared to pay a premium for it.
However, I know that Virgin are screwing me on their current charges and have been thinking of doing something about it and as I won't be getting Eurosport as part of my package I've started at looking at alternatives.... and therefore Sky.... but looking at the sky website I'm confused as hell.
My Virgin package gives me an internet speed of 300 Mbps +. I have their TV package and a basic landline phone connection.
Looking at the Sky speed checker it looks like the best I can get is around 60Mbps .... so a lot slower.
On Virgin I have a Tivo box and regularly schedule programme recordings.
I have fairly basic TV package but it does/did include Eurosport. I don't have Netflix.
I'm trying to work out what package (and price) I would need from Sky to be roughly similar.
So as fast an internet as is physically available in my area. A box with the ability to record (and schedule) programmes (Q-box?) A reasonably decent set of TV programmes available to me.
I get confused when looking at some packages which cover the TV package as to whether the internet is included or separate.
As to the cost... always hard to work out the "new customer intro" versus what that price becomes later.
Sorry for the long ramble but just trying to understand better before I get into discussions with both of them.... Thanks...
The speeds are presumably because you have the (Virgin Proprietary) "cable" to your house.
Sky would be over the regular phone&internet line (What you might think of as your BT line), and in your case presumably thats a copper phone line for at least the final part of the run.
You won't get high speeds down that "BT phone line" until you have fibre to the property.
The speeds are presumably because you have the (Virgin Proprietary) to your house.
Sky would be over the regular phone&internet line (What you might think of as your BT line), and in your case presumably thats a copper phone line for at least the final part of the run.
You won’t get high speeds down that BT phone line”until you have fibre to the property.
Thanks... yes, the Virgin feed is cable. We have Virgin cable running from the road up through our front garden to the house. Our "landline" is provided through this same cable. We have no BT line into the house at the moment. The overhead BT cable which ran from a pole on the opposite side of the road and down our drive to the house got broken in a storm at the pole end some years ago. We've never done anything about getting it fixed as we don't actually use it.
The overhead BT cable which ran from a pole on the opposite side of the road and down our drive to the house got broken in a storm at the pole end some years ago. We’ve never done anything about getting it fixed as we don’t actually use it.
I suspect that if you want non-Virgin internet, you're going to need another non-Virgin cable of some sort. When we moved from Virgin to FTTP they came and ran the fibre from the pole to the house, it follows the same route as the (vestigial) copper phone line.
Removing the TV for a moment:
You have three options for Internet provisioning. Regular DSL, Virgin cable, and fibre to the premises (FTTP). The latter two may or may not be available to you - obviously in your specific case, VM cable is! Critically though, DSL is delivered over the old phone system and so requires line rental, FTTP or VM cable does not. So when you're pricing things up, you can add £25-30 on top of any ISP fees for DSL
Personally, I would regard going to DSL as a huge step backwards. The only thing I would replace VM cable with would be with FTTP - which is exactly what I did. DSL is dying technology, the only thing stopping it being dead is the absence of wide-scale FTTP availability and on that score Virgin should be shitting themselves right now because they're on borrowed time.
Personally, I would regard going to DSL as a huge step backwards. The only thing I would replace VM cable with would be with FTTP – which is exactly what I did. DSL is dying technology, the only thing stopping it being dead is the absence of wide-scale FTTP availability and on that score Virgin should be shitting themselves right now because they’re on borrowed time.
Thanks. Makes sense. Any thoughts on what route (and who with) could/should I be thinking of to supply this?
Look at BT/EE too.
We moved to them for TV (from Sky) and Internet (from copper BT) when they ran fibre past us a couple of years ago.
TNT Sports wasn't much extra to add and also meant I'd got MotoGP back.
Have you looked at mobile 5G home broadband reception from the various networks offering it?
Three 5G home broadband is often on offer for ~half price, then ~£20pcm, last time I looked.
https://www.three.co.uk/broadband/home-broadband
Getting tempted by Three myself, as NOWTV BB and free <60min phonecalls including mobiles has gone up again to £29.50pcm, plus the rubbish wiring in the loft limit us to ~18/4.5Mbps.
Recent tests on my Three mobile data SIM at https://www.thinkbroadband.com/speedtest (a site I'm used on and off since ~2000) suggest we will get better speeds even though we are right on the border of indoor 5G reception here, with slightly more latency at ~50ms iirc.
We moved the other way last year but had Sky Fibre so was running over 100mbps. Virgin cable is noticeably faster and more reliable which is great when all devices are being used at the same time.
TV wise the basic Sky package will give you very similar to the basic Virgin. You'll also get Sky Atlantic which is about the best channel they do. If you get Sky Q you can record multiple programs at the same time and the memory capacity is more than you'll need. Be aware though that according to Virgin, Sky will be following them to a stream only service so no more Q box (or Virgin box. Ours is all streamed and can't be saved).
Overall IMO Virgin is better for broadband and Sky better for telly although they are close enough to make a decision based on what price they offer. My Sky renewal (TV, Sport, HD, Broadband, Phone) was going to be £120 after haggling where as Virgin offered it for £60.
As for TV,
It's easy to fall down a rabbit hole of "well, for an extra three pounds a month I can get all this extra..." but what do you actually need? I was paying through the nose for a high-end TV package with VM that I couldn't conveniently use because it was in the wrong room. It came with a "landline" which was an RJ11 > BT tail hanging out the back of the router which never saw a phone. After the NewCustomersOnly period lapsed I was paying nearly a hundred quid for an Internet connection. I couldn't get rid fast enough when FTTP arrived.
Prior to that I was with Sky. I had a mid-range package, I have no interest in sports and at the time had a wall full of films on shinydisc, but the base product was (probably intentionally) crap so I upgraded.
I sacked it all off and you know what, I don't miss it. I get the standard intellectually devoid crap like Masked Singer through a traditional aerial. Most mainstream channels have a streaming service (iPlayer, ITVX et al). I already have Amazon Prime because we've saved an absolute fortune on free parcel delivery alone. Netflix was great but I saw my arse and binned it when they locked down geolocation. There is absolutely nothing on Paramount+ of any interest to me beyond Star Trek, the rest is garbage and as above I already get sufficient garbage via terrestrial TV. We currently have a free trail of Disney+ and I'm hoovering up Star Wars series, but it's unlikely to get renewed when the trial ends.
My viewing is Doctor Who / Only Connect / The 1% Club. My partner's viewing is "whatever's on as background noise," property shows and that GP documentary thing that always manages to show festering wounds and boils being lanced just as I'm sitting down to my tea. I don't need to pay fifty quid per month for that content.
Any thoughts on what route (and who with) could/should I be thinking of to supply this?
It's wholly dependant on geography. When I jumped ship from VM there was one single FTTP provider where I live - BRSK, who has been excellent - so I had little choice. I was counting down the days until they went live. Is Sky offering FTTP where you are?
Have you looked at mobile 5G home broadband reception from the various networks offering it?
I completely forgot about that, good shout.
My concerns here would be latency as you suggest (an issue if you're a gamer), and caps on amount of data downloadable on your plan (again, an issue if you're a gamer).
A few minutes' googling later,
This seems to provide results which aren't complete garbage. Openreach only suggests its own services and tells me FTTP isn't available. Even MSE fails to suggest the provider I'm actually with.
Thanks to all... lots of info.
A few answers from me...
I had a look at the three 5G link and ran the test... only 4G available for me.
Btw, as a general clarification, I live in the Camberley, Surrey area.
I'm not a Gamer and don't (at this moment in time) need my 300Mbps speed, just something totally sufficient and not just borderline.
My TV requirement are pretty basic (and probably show my age).... just general, BBC, ITV, 4, 5, Drama, Yesterday, More4, PBS America, Sky Arts, Film 4 and.... Eurosport (which we know what's happening).
I don't want football channels or F1 stuff but like some of the other sports on Eurosport.... skiing, Dakar and some of the oddball one offs. I used to love rugby but have lost interest in recent years.
I don't have Netflix and don't need it but maybe it would be useful (if cheap). I do use iPlayer, ITVX and some others.
I'll follow up some more on the suggestions. I guess the thing that has led to me sticking with Virgin to date is... fast and reliable speeds. Reliable uptime, Easy to use one stop shop and it included Eurosport. But with Eurosport going unless I put my hand even deeper into my pocket... which I won't... the package and pricing seems less and less atractive.
don’t (at this moment in time) need my 300Mbps speed
...
I guess the thing that has led to me sticking with Virgin to date is… fast and reliable speeds.
Which is it?
For me, I'm an occasional gamer so being able to jump on the Xbox for a prearranged session online with a mate only to be met with a 40GB update to a game, then being able to respond "fair enough, I'll go get a beer and be back in 5 minutes" rather than "shite, I'll come back tomorrow" is a killer app.
That aside, the thing I found with Internet speeds is it's a bit like the Megapixel arms race in cameras, you hit a point where it's good enough and beyond that it's diminishing returns. For me, "good enough" was when everyone in the house could do what they wanted simultaneously without performance falling off a cliff because someone else is watching a video. And that was a pretty low threshold, streaming 4k video is something like 25Mbps.
Which is it?
Fair question.... I guess I was happy with around 100Mbps and then Virgin teamed up with O2 (who I was already with as well) and my speeds got bumped up "for free"... of course not free really. I also got my O2 data doubled as well.
"Volt." Same here.
The million dollar question though is, did you notice any difference? That will tell you whether it's worth paying extra for extra.
When we moved from 100+ with Sky Fibre to 300+ with Virgin it was certainly a noticable difference, especially on downloads. Saying that, at the time we had it the Sky speed was perfectly acceptable and didn't seem slow.
When our cheap rate runs out I'll be happy to go back to Sky if they offer the best deal.
Oh, and don't discount just getting a new telly. Leaving Sky meant losing multiroom and although Virgin offer an app based system, our 5 or so year old bedroom telly didn't want to play. It had the ability to do online stuff but was very clunky. We swapped it for the current version (£130 32" JVC Amazon thing from Currys) and for a cheap telly the online interface is light years ahead of the one it replaced with all the normal channels (via Freeview) and streaming services bunched together like the Virgin or Sky platforms. It's so easy to use that if you don't want any of the pay for channels you really don't need to.
Reading with interest
Just got vm install date number7 the new duct in footpath said to be blocked since install 1 in September of there was any choice I'd bin them off now let alone in 18 months ****ing useless
My TV requirement are pretty basic (and probably show my age)…. just general, BBC, ITV, 4, 5, Drama, Yesterday, More4, PBS America, Sky Arts, Film 4 and…. Eurosport (which we know what’s happening).
Not much you can't watch from this list with a BT/EE Freeview box and a Firestick. I love using this combo and have not looked back since we got rid of our Virgin TV contract. Saving a lot of money too! From what I read it doesn't seem like you'd benefit much from over 50mbps download speed either. I reckon you could save a small fortune making these changes.
^ Replacing a smart TV because the smarts are no longer smart enough is madness. What you want there is something like a NowTV box or a Firestick, surely?
Well, I guess it depends if you need/want a new telly and how much you are spending? As mentioned, ours was about the cheapest 32" available that day at Curry's. Buying a fire stick or Now TV box costs as well and I have a use for the old TV. My point was that the tech is as good as having a Virgin/Sky/Now TV so negates the need for one (or an additional X Box feed) so 'may' be an option.