Subject: Sky / Virgin / BT etc. -

Help!

I want to review my telephone, TV, broadband and mobile package. I'd appreciate peoples comments.

My needs / current stuff

TV

Currently we have a Sky+ package with 4 channels for around £19 per month

Frankly, we mainly stick to freeview channels, with a few extra ones for the wife during the day - ones with house makeover programs on. We rarely watch Sky One. We don't like lost, for example.

We love Sky+ as it allows us to record the few programs we watch (ahem.....house dr who and heroes at present) and also programs for our baby daughter (in the night garden)

A mate said that Virgin's V+ box does the same as Sky+, or we could just buy a recorder. However am suspicious of quality of virgin - and they are basically NTL, who I have endured before...

Also, if we quit sky, do they leave it running with limited channels and the box still running? - i.e. sky digital freeview kind of thing?


Broadband.

We have the "free" sky broadband. It's more like dialup franly. According to my monitor it peaked today at 133.4 kbps. I have a PS3 and it is not powerful enough most of the time. In Gran Turismo I can only race in races of max 4 cars.... We need a faster connection - but relatively cheaply



Phone.

My wife is always on the phone. We pay £11 per month for BT line rental and £5 for sky talk all the time.


Mobile

We are low users, currently on virgin pay as you go. My wife spends £10-15 per month, I manage £5 and half of that is texts. We get an awful signal in our house and need to move to a network that is not on T-mobile / virgin.


So, mobile to one side, we currently pay £19+£11+£5 - £35 per month for Sky TV+BT phone+narrowbroadband.

What options would people recommend?

THANKS!
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I think for an extra £5 you can get the better sky broadband. But then again if you dont get the sports on sky it could well be worth just buying a freeview recorder and ditching sky.
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I have bethere t'internet at £22 per month (there are cheaper ones) and it is bloody fast (for the UK). It depends on how far from the exchange you are but I get about 12-15meg, upload 3meg.

Telly - I have freeview and a recorder but I will upgrade to topup TV+ at some point soon (topuptv.com). That will offer most things and even has a pay per view bit.

phone - I have orange and pay way too much nearly all the time even though they are supposed to give me the cheapest package for my usage - they spout barnacles.

surely pay as you go would be your best bet with your tiny usage? land-line - has to be BT for the tinterweb, i never use the landline though.

not sure any of that helps much...

Wherever possible, go with the virgin option. Just remember that.

My mum in law got Sky and the internet was rubbish all of the time, dropping of repeatedly, plus the support from India was typically rubbish like all Indian call centers!

She just changed to Plus Net which I had recommended to me by the bloke who does my work computers.....it is cheapish, very quick and the support so far has been very very impressive!

I think sometimes you can be better off going through U Switch and finding 3 different suppliers. I personally use Which site and see whats the best. There is an awful lot to choose from right now.

I have AOL at home and its not that fast imo.

cheers for all the help.

Sky's free broadband is so slow it's nearly untrue. On my PS3 it takes 2 hours to do a system update......

as if you've ever had virgin.

Just don't use any service from virgin.

I did once.

With virgin it took my x box to download a 400mb file 4-5 hours. Downloaded the new maps for call of duty on bt and it took about 15minutes for a similar sized file.

Also when virgin internet went dead they had no intention of sorting it. The customer service was awful. Couldn't understand a word the people were telling me over the phone. To make matters worse when i threatened to switch the internet miraculously came back. It was like they just switched it on and off some how :S Then it went dead a few days later rang them up, spoke to a Indian bloke and went through all the same process which didn't help at all. So canceled that waited another 1 or 2 weeks until i could apply with bt. So all in all i was without the internet for a good month and a half.

BT seems very good at the moment hasn't gone down since I've been at home. Their home hub is nice and quick for my x box which has improved the connection of game play significantly.

I've been on TalkTalk for the last couple of years and for £16p/m for line rental and broadband I've been pretty chuffed. I don't play many games online though so I don't know whether it's fast or not compared to other people's.

keep the advice coming. Sounds like a lottery. I paid for an 8MPBS line with BT when in sheffield, and that never exceeded 1.5. I complained and was told I was too far from the exchange.

I live miles from our exchange, which is crap anyway so i only usually get 500k-1M :(

My parents practically live on top of the exchange where they live so get really nice speed :P

I've never had a problem with BT, and they do well with ping ratings for gaming.

Mate has freedom2surf and has the closest to maximum speed i've ever seen, and he gets great pings when gaming.

Be unlimited is good if you can get it, but obviously sky is very cheap...
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How about BT Option 3 with BT Vision?

Then open your router up to BT Fon and you can pretty much use wireless internet in most of the world.

BT Vision would be a goodish choice regarding the TV section i'd say...it's basically a Sky+ box but with freeview channels. Has massive storage capacity and you can series link and seach any channel, and you can buy films.

We got one free when we got our wireless internet and it's stuck in my room.

As for the rest of the package, not really sure.

I can't get freeview without upgrading my aerial. I'm tempted to do that and ditch sky, saving £19 a month.
It's just it'll take months to recoup the outlay and I wouldn't be able to watch Gladiators.