TV & Broadband Package

rick_chasey

I just moved house this weekend and now live in Fulham.

I'm looking into, as the title would suggest, a good TV & broadband package.

As far as I am aware, we have no landline, so that's not a consideration.

I use the internet, a fair bit, quite a bit of vids, i player etc a lot of standard browsage - newspaper sites, forums, e-mails, and I play my xbox online a bit, but that'd be the only machine playing online, but that's only casual (so I don't think I need a super-mega-fast connection),

With the TV, my only real requirement is all the standard freeview channels, Eurosport (obviously), and the music channels, as well as an ability to record easily (like sky +). After all, when I'm at work and the Giro is on, I want to be able to watch it as if it live.


What would people recommend? We already have the sky connection from the previous tennant, but I'm wary of the price of sky and their broadband quality.

Is BT Vision any good?

sungod

for adsl (broadband via telephone line) quality will not vary much between providers, sky, bt, etc. etc., they are all using the same bit of wire back to the exchange, the equipment there will be same/similar

some may have a better contention ratio than others (number of people sharing the same chunk of bandwidth from the exchange into the network), but again for domestic use probably not much in it

their backhaul/core networks will vary a bit, but the main difference is probably the quality of customer servce when there's a fault!

there will always be someone who has had a nightmare experience, no matter which provider, imho the best option if it's available in your area is to go for virgin broadband, then you get a proper high-speed cable run into your place that will deliver the claimed speed, they'll do the phone and tv too, including a box that will record for you

to see if they cover you, there's a postcode checker here...

http://shop.virginmedia.com/broadband/a ... -live.html

you'd need to check their website for current offers to see how price stacks up vs. sky

afaik sky's price excludes the bt line rental, so when comparing keep that extra cost in mind

Lucky Douglas

You could consider freesat - you buy a box similar to a sky+, hook it up to your sky connection and bingo.

Gives you facilities to record to disk of many free to air channels without any monthly payments whatsoever. Also lets you view the bbc iplayer

Not a package - you'd have to pick off your broadband separately.

schlepcycling

What about a Virgin Media broadband+phone+tv package, they've currently got a £9.50 a month deal for the first 6 months with free installation.

No I don't work for or have any association with Virgin Media

rick_chasey

schlepcycling wrote:

What about a Virgin Media broadband+phone+tv package, they've currently got a £9.50 a month deal for the first 6 months with free installation.

No I don't work for or have any association with Virgin Media

What is their tv stuff like?

My previous experience was that itwas very inferior to sky - does it now have the capability to record, pause etc?

In sheffield when I had them their internet also stopped every now and then.

schlepcycling

Rick Chasey wrote:

schlepcycling wrote:

What about a Virgin Media broadband+phone+tv package, they've currently got a £9.50 a month deal for the first 6 months with free installation.

No I don't work for or have any association with Virgin Media

What is their tv stuff like?

My previous experience was that itwas very inferior to sky - does it now have the capability to record, pause etc?

In sheffield when I had them their internet also stopped every now and then.

I've not used them personally but they've just cabled up our street so I'm seriously considering them so that I can get a faster broadband connection that the measley 2mb I get at the moment. To get the recording set top box (like sky+) it's either £5 per month extra or you need to go for their xl package http://www.virginmedia.com/

bompington

We used to have Virgin cable when we lived in an area where it was available, always found it reliable for TV and broadband (much better than the ADSL we have now in the country). I believe they do a V+ box or some such, no idea how good it is but I'd guess it's more or less the same thing as Sky+.
We were going to get Sky last year but they were so inflexible in terms of what they would install (all surface cabling, will drill one hole through the nearest window frame to the socket), and private installers were so expensive, that we decided not to bother - Freeview doing us just fine, but then we don't watch much telly: we'd managed without one for the previous 2 years.

_Brun_

Virgin Media's TV/movies on demand is miles ahead of anything Sky can offer. Very comprehensive selection of the previous 7 days via catch up means that half the time you don't even need to worry about recording stuff. HD support was lacking for a long while, but that's also good these days.

We're on the 20Mb broadband, which is generally pretty solid.

Evil Laugh

Avoid BT like the plague. They choked our Internet in normal usage hours, told us we could only get 2mb on our line, we only ever tested around 1mb. When we swapped to Be were were testing around 5mb using the same BT line.go figure that out!

Their customer service is beyond appalling. It took us 6 months to get out of our contract having been passed from pillar to post but we got all our money back as they also lied to us about the tv service when we placed the order. I told them to check the call and they cancelled and refunded.

The tv also uses the Internet bandwidth so when using it my flatmate could not use his xbox online, for example.

Utter garbage.

Anonymous

I work for Virgin Media, but I actually use BT and Freeview in my house, so I am talking unbiased.

To be honest it comes down to luck, I meet people who have had a terrible experience with Sky/BT and are coming over to Virgin, I also have come across people who have had nothing but trouble with Virgin and are moving over to Sky/BT.

A lot of it depends on the condition of the local network with BT or Virgin.

Virgin didn't build any of the network, it was built by smaller local cable companies, Telewest, Comtel, United Artists for example some years back. Then NTL brought most of those and merged with Telewest before changing their name to Virgin Media. My point being that although your talking to the same call centres and using similar equipment in your house, the most important bit to the quality of your service, the network varies massively.

The best thing to do if you can is talk to neighbours who use Virgin or BT and ask how reliable their service has been. If they tell you their phone line has gone down 6 times in the last year forget it.

RDW

I've never used it, but Eurosport has an online player with video on demand, so presumably you could catch up with the cycling without having to record anything:

http://www.eurosportplayer.co.uk/

£4 a month, or under £3 with an annual subscription, so could be a better deal than a 'package' - you'd just need a Freeview TV, a PC, and any decent net connection to get all you need. Be, the ISP I use, has already been mentioned:

https://www.bethere.co.uk

Having the PC plugged into the TV also gives you access to iPlayer and the equivalent services the other channels provide. Next year there'll be standard boxes that take the place of the PC to make this sort of thing even easier:

http://www.youview.com/

Pokerface

I am now on Virgin after a lifetime on Sky.

Glad I made the switch.

Virgin offers me all all the same channels as Sky. HD+ and the box, etc. Superfast internet (way better than SKY). And a phone line which I never use (but came as part of the package.

I got it all installed for free, etc. Just had to pay for the box - but they have different deals at different times. Internet speed can be chosen, as can you package.

No dish needed either which was a bonus!!

Highly recommend it if it's available in your area.

rick_chasey

Pokerface wrote:

I am now on Virgin after a lifetime on Sky.

Glad I made the switch.

Virgin offers me all all the same channels as Sky. HD+ and the box, etc. Superfast internet (way better than SKY). And a phone line which I never use (but came as part of the package.

I got it all installed for free, etc. Just had to pay for the box - but they have different deals at different times. Internet speed can be chosen, as can you package.

No dish needed either which was a bonus!!

Highly recommend it if it's available in your area.

It's not, and BT vision say they don't do Eurosport...

Sky it is!

daviesee

When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. - Arthur Conan Doyle.

Pokerface

Rick Chasey wrote:

Pokerface wrote:

I am now on Virgin after a lifetime on Sky.

Glad I made the switch.

Virgin offers me all all the same channels as Sky. HD+ and the box, etc. Superfast internet (way better than SKY). And a phone line which I never use (but came as part of the package.

I got it all installed for free, etc. Just had to pay for the box - but they have different deals at different times. Internet speed can be chosen, as can you package.

No dish needed either which was a bonus!!

Highly recommend it if it's available in your area.

It's not, and BT vision say they don't do Eurosport...

Sky it is!

Virgin not available in your area? Bummer.