View Full Version : VirginMedia or Sky?
As above.
Moving house in about a week and the new place is in a V-Media area.
But ive read reviews of interupted connections, and dodgy set top boxes etc etc.
And of course Sky is more expensive, and uses phoneline broadband.....
Opinions?
We used to use sky but now use virgin havent experienced anymore problems on it than we did with sky and with virgin you get movies/music/tv on demand which sky doesnt have and you can record with v+ boxes aswell so sky have nothing that virgin doesnt anymore
just do your homework on the packages you want.
we have virgin & it is very good. our friends round the corner have sky & they swear by it.
Trust me, i look into everything before buying lol
But both have good and bad points.
Virgin HD, and the quicker net speed/better router.
Apparently sometimes unreliable service, especially with net speed
Sky HD, no issues at my dads place with it, less initial setup cost
Slower net speed, more expensive monthly cost overall.
Im falling towards VM atm
Nova_Tek
15-03-11, 07:46 PM
Virgin Media 100Mb :d
It's available down my street but don't really wanna spend/have that much money.
Hoochie
15-03-11, 07:55 PM
Before moving house i had virgin for tv,phone and broadband, and found them really good, the internet was great infact very fast.
Was with them from being telewest ( so a long long time).
So when we moved here to the back of beyond we had to go sky for phone and tv and through a 3rd party (bt) for broadband and it's sh!t slow, but the reception for terrestrial tv and mobile phones are cack too.
I preferred having all 3 services from the same provider, as when we movved in here it took them 3 weeks to connect the broadband...and sky blamed bt and bt blamed sky.......bt came out and it was skys fault.
I would go with virgin or look into BT and see what they have to offer as i think they do really good tv and BB.
Pistol Pete
15-03-11, 08:28 PM
I have VM for my phone and BB. Am looking to swap my telly from Sky to them soon aswell. Sky BB (or BT more like) is ****e. Worth paying for the VM deal IMO.
TeddyThom
15-03-11, 08:31 PM
I got VM broadband and never had a problem =] Last time I had Sky nothing but problems, to the point where Sky wouldn't even get considered now, no matter what they brought out
Vm are winning for me atm.
BT have got some pretty good deals, but with limited bandwidth net, and 7mb max line speed... For more £££ than virgin too.
Pistol Pete
15-03-11, 08:37 PM
lol @ 7mb. Thats UP TO (not suggesting you dont know that!). Will probably average around 2mb if you are lucky!
My VM is up to 10mb and averages around 8.5 - 9. Cant complain at that!
I think they do get it a lot closer to the actual speed these days, not like a few years ago lol
My current net is "up to 10mb", was told the max my line would take was around 8meg when i ordered the service, and i get 7.7+ reliably.....
I would be going for the 30mbps v/m
Pistol Pete
15-03-11, 08:43 PM
Probably true..but for me VM has the fibre optic which must make a hell of a difference and that means a more reliable connection.
I have Virgin Media 10Mb Broadband and never experienced any problems in 3 years. I always get around 9.5Mb even at peak times also.
Edit : My parents are with Sky TV and broadband upto 20Mb but they are lucky to get 6Mb, plus also the TV goes off when we have cloud cover.
sulphur
15-03-11, 08:55 PM
I've got Virgin 20Mb, and my connection has never dropped below 18Mb. I just wouldn't pay for Sky.
General Baxter
15-03-11, 09:07 PM
iv got VM
lowest TV package, lowest phone package, 50mb £27 a month :)
even got sky1 and eurosport :)
never had a problem
edit: tv just gone off, ill go lookies lol
it went into stand by, left iplayer on to long lol
That just the normal HD box then?
Have you just started having it? Becuase 50meg with the lowest tv/phone is like £44 a month, or £28 for the first 6 month.
I wouldnt bother with 50meg, 30 will do me fine as my current 7meg doesnt really struggle with anything :)
What im looking at-
30meg net
Lowest tv/phone
HD activated box, pause/record etc etc. Super Media hub
£30 per month for first 6 month, £42 after.
£50 initial one off setup fee.
Ive got Sky plus full package including broadband is about 68 a month. I have the old box but my girlfriend recently upgraded to skyplus and all skyplus boxes are now hd boxes and have anytime plus if you connect your box to your internet router it will give you over 100 movies on demand, unlike regular anytime it needs a couple of minutes to download but it is a much larger selection than the 30 or so programs on anytime. I really like sky tv and find it so easy and user friendly I much prefer it to the vbox product novacabrio and other friends have. But as for broadband, yes I have had problems with broadband and can be really slow when the kids... not my kids but all the others get home from school and use all the bandwidth up. At least thats how I explain away being frustrated that my phones 3g connection is faster than my broadband.. in fact dial up is quicker than my broadband between 4 and 7 in the evening.
General Baxter
15-03-11, 09:24 PM
+ its all cable, no ****ty signal when the clouds come lol
adam, you wont need pause and record, VM comes with iplayer built in :)
Yeah true about the on demand bo**ocks, but you cant get everything on there. Just the main 4 channels.
Thinking of not bothering with the HD box now, only really worth watching films/sports in HD, neither of which i'll be having lol
Regarding actual throughput speeds, have a look on samknows for an estimated speed, or there should be a review site where you can view a map that lists people's ISP and tested speeds at their addresses (i.e. see if anyone near you has the service you're thinking of getting and checkout their speed)
nova ian
15-03-11, 10:35 PM
We have been on both sky in the flat and virgin media in the house. Had no probs what so ever with virgin. Sky are ****e! We often had the t.v going crap because of the weather and the whole bt line rental thing is a con.
Virgin all the way mate
were on virgin, it works very well all of the time, if your moving to a cabled area then i think its your only choice really. I think its great. My parents have sky and have had since the beginning of time, my dad is a good advert for them as he swears by it, but thats just his opinion.
sky comes in to its own when reception through an aerial is crap and no virgin is available.
Personally i think you should have virgin and also get an aerial fitted for freeview in other rooms, this is what i have done.
Freeview is getting more popular as peoples only tv choice though, virgin and sky are quite expensive, so getting your aerial system sorted and going for something like bt vision is also a good choice where the reception through an aerial is good. The service offered by bt is much better than it was a couple of years ago.
Freeview for the win though, bare in mind i am only saying this because i fit tv aerials for a living and am just trying to generate a little business lol.
virgin is the clear winner.
virgin best in UK at the min
Hoochie
16-03-11, 05:40 PM
We have been on both sky in the flat and virgin media in the house. Had no probs what so ever with virgin. Sky are ****e! We often had the t.v going crap because of the weather and the whole bt line rental thing is a con.
Virgin all the way mate
For sure.....the amount of times we've sat down to watch something we sky+'d and it has lost most of it due to no reception( weather related) is a pile of w@nk.
I was gutted when i realised we had to go with sky when we moved.
Virgin FTW....:)
Calamity Josh
16-03-11, 08:19 PM
I have virgin media for internet and it's nothing but trouble, it totaly cuts out ar peak times!
rubachuk
17-03-11, 09:27 AM
Virgin for t'internet and phone and Sky for TV here and wouldn't have it any other way.
I had Sky broadband for about a fortnight when we moved house and it was the most god awful pile of turd I've ever had the misfortune to use. Fired them off and got Virgin back instead. I have found virgin 100% reliable and it runs at 9.7mbps against the advertised 10mbps which ain't too shabby.
TV wise, I have the full HD package from Sky and is 99.9% reliable. I've had it for 8+ years and I've only lost reception once for about 20 mins in all that time. It works out cheaper for full HD to do it through Sky rather than a full package from Virgin.
Other thing to say about Sky is that I think it is much nicer to use than the Virgin. The inlaws had virgin fitted a few weeks back and the menu system/tv guide is just stupid and illogical, nowhere near as slick as Sky. For that reason alone I wouldn't bother with it.
Probably true..but for me VM has the fibre optic which must make a hell of a difference and that means a more reliable connection.
Not really, it's all a big gimmick, as on either end of your omg space age technology is a standard bit of cable.
edit: Just to confuse matters I found virgin was shocking to the point that I often had to find something else to do for evenings/go in to uni to use the net, as virgin was down/on a go slow. Have Sky at home and uni now and it's been spot on* and see's actual speeds of 1.4MB/s on downloads.
*other than when some tool crashed square into the cabinet housing the phone lines outside lol
virgin can be a victim of its own success, at peak times, it can go really slow, but at all other times it is excellent..
i have one gripe that is the virgins own anti virus package can take a while to start up, so i simply turn the pc on, than go to the kitchen for a brew.....job jobbed.
Ahhh contention, when all the randy 14 year old boys get home from school and log on to www.JustDiscoveredWhatMyCockIsFor.net and bash away lol
Nova_Tek
17-03-11, 04:42 PM
virgin can be a victim of its own success, at peak times, it can go really slow, but at all other times it is excellent..
i have one gripe that is the virgins own anti virus package can take a while to start up, so i simply turn the pc on, than go to the kitchen for a brew.....job jobbed.
This is becuase they use throttling at peak times to allow everyone to be able to use the services. I'm looking at BT Infinity, which is fibre optic, as it's now in my area. for a few quid more per month it gives 10Mb more than the equivelent Virgin package which is 30Mb.
and probably also bull sheets like the virgin setup... they all use similar kit, the bt is probably rented virgin stuff.....
on the whole, my virgin package is alright. i can't be bothered to change over cos people on 5 continents know my family's email address...
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