# Sky or Virgin



## Geordie_1982 (Jun 12, 2010)

We have currently had Sky for about 4yrs now and feel like a change but a bit unsure as everyone offers you the world then when it comes to bill time you get .

Now with Sky i have unlimited Broadband but because the area we live in the speeds are:

Ping 74ms
Download speed 2.75mbps
Upload speed 0.67mbps

Yes i know really slow but what can you do.

Anyway we have the unlimited Broadband, Unlimited House phone and for the tv we have 

1 HD box with every channel except sport
2 extra normal boxes with the same channels as above.

Virgin is working out a couple of quid cheaper 

But with Virgin the phone would be the same unlimited.
The broadband would be 60mb which is a vast improvement on what we have now

But its the tv that is bothering me i would be after all the channels except the sport but Sky are saying that Virgin doesn't have all the same channels and we would end up with less channels and Virgin have less HD channels.

:devil: I hate changes :lol:

Does anyone work for either company or have 1st hand experience of the differences between the channels.

Im trying to do a pro and con list to see whether its worth the hassle of switching.

:thumb:


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## [email protected] (Jan 9, 2006)

If youre only on 2.75 meg now are you likely to get virgin fibre optic in your area or have you chosen not to upgrade on sky?


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## Geordie_1982 (Jun 12, 2010)

[email protected] said:


> If youre only on 2.75 meg now are you likely to get virgin fibre optic in your area or have you chosen not to upgrade on sky?


I spoke to Sky and they said they dont know when they rolling out fibre optic and in my area i probably wont be able to get it


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## Matt. (Aug 26, 2007)

If Virgin was cabled in my area I would have them. But for me, I have to stick with Sky at a mere 1.66mb download.


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## SKY (Sep 25, 2011)

I prefer virgins


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## Geordie_1982 (Jun 12, 2010)

SKY said:


> I prefer virgins


We all prefer Virgins :thumb:

Does anyone know what the what channels i will lose out on if i went with Virgin over Sky


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## Grizzle (Jul 12, 2006)

Virgin, far stable service.


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## essjay (Mar 27, 2007)

Geordie_1982 said:


> We all prefer Virgins :thumb:
> 
> Does anyone know what the what channels i will lose out on if i went with Virgin over Sky


depends what package you have been offered PM sent


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## SteveyG (Apr 1, 2007)

Probably easier to tell us which channels you watch or look on here:

http://store.virginmedia.com/digital-tv/channels/index.html

We considered Sky, but if you want good internet, then a package from Virgin works out better than just having Sky for TV and Internet from Virgin.

I have no complaints about Virgin at all. Tech support is very good these days (if you can put up with the initial same old questions) and we've only had 1 or 2 interruptions in 4 years and they gave us £30 off our bill each time for a few hours outage.


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## Stezz (Apr 29, 2011)

My wife works for Virgin media. What channels do you think you can't get with Virgin? Virgin media offer channels in different packages S, M. L & XL. In the XL package there are 175 channels, there a few Sky channels they can't offer like Atlantic also Virgin's TiVo box is much better than Sky. 

If you want more specific details on packages PM me and she can get you some more information


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## Guitarjon (Jul 13, 2012)

To be honest I think customer service on both is shocking, perhaps sky is better than virigin here. Virgin used to be great until the last few years, both my self and my dad have had many issues with virgin and their lack of customer service. I think value for money virgin are definatly the best to go for and will give you offers if you complain. Sky just seems expensive and what experiences I have had with their broadband it's pretty pants. Tv package virgin have always been slightly behind sky but Id say they are on a par now.


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## Geordie_1982 (Jun 12, 2010)

Im swaying more to virgin as 

The BB is way faster.
The phone line aint through BT so dont have to deal with those plums.
And the tv at the min with sky can be a pain when the dish is knocked out of alignment or the weather is bad as the signal is low and we get charged for them to fix it.

But its just the channels that im bothered about.
Just wondering what channels sky has that virgin dont :thumb:


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## OvlovMike (Jul 19, 2011)

Aye, the only channel I think I'm aware of not having is Sky Atlantic. Having to have Sport for F1 is a PITA, but there are other ways if you can be bothered. Outside of that, TiVo boxes are much, much better than the best Sky boxes and the On Demand stuff is so much slicker, especially considering your broadband is crap with Sky


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## herbiedacious (Sep 27, 2010)

Tivo Box- brilliant
Superhub- complete and utter........(pauses to reboot AGAIN!).........sh!te.


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## johnnyguitar (Mar 24, 2010)

[email protected] said:


> If youre only on 2.75 meg now are you likely to get virgin fibre optic in your area or have you chosen not to upgrade on sky?


I only get about 3mbps tops using ADSL through the phoneline due to the distance from the exchange and the mixture of Victorian, 60s/70s and modern cabling. I am in a Virgin cable area and was getting a steady 29mbps. This does seem to have dropped off a bit recently though.
Superhub was not so good, I have now added a second router and all is well again by the look of it.

I miss Sky Atlantic but that's about it.


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## pringle_addict (Jan 2, 2008)

Virgin Tivo is the best thing ever... I can't imagine not having it now.


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## Sirmally2 (Feb 28, 2011)

This was the last test i ran on my router off my wifi...

This is virgin 10mb


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## Geordie_1982 (Jun 12, 2010)

So is this superhub not very good then


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## Hotchy (Jul 22, 2010)

The only channel iv noticed virgin doesnt get is the premier sports pay per view. Still get all the movie channels in hd, all the kids channels etc. Sky atlantics apparently missing? Never noticed. Virgin records 2 things at once, 3 if you are watching the 3rd. Virgin have movies on demand in the XL package that are free, and theres about 500+ of them. Can always find something to watch. They have great catch up on demand tv bits, bbc iplayer, itv net player, 4 OD etc. The hard drives massive and never really gets full.

Did i mention i can download a movie or an album within a couple minutes on there 100mb connection


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## Rob_Quads (Jul 17, 2006)

Geordie_1982 said:


> So is this superhub not very good then


It is widely acknowledged that its a piece of crap.

Annoying my for me I can't switch it to modem mode and use my own router because there is a fault on my line which they can't seem to fix. Means that I often get disconnects and the router needs a reboot to fix it.

Virgin support was awful for me. Took 1 hour to get through to someone who actually knew how do to stuff. My line signal was way too strong yet india persisted with "Are you using wifi or wired", "What firewall do you have". It took me saying over and over again that it was all their side nothing to do with customer side so it didn't matter. 2 minutes into the call with the UK support and they saw the problem on the line and arranged an engineer.

Shame they still left me with the disconnect problem.

I wanted to switch all my services over to Virgin but until they get Sports HD3/4 its a no go for me.


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## [email protected] (Jan 9, 2006)

johnnyguitar said:


> I only get about 3mbps tops using ADSL through the phoneline due to the distance from the exchange and the mixture of Victorian, 60s/70s and modern cabling. I am in a Virgin cable area and was getting a steady 29mbps. This does seem to have dropped off a bit recently though.
> Superhub was not so good, I have now added a second router and all is well again by the look of it.
> 
> I miss Sky Atlantic but that's about it.


Was forgetting cable still existed, only ever see speeds like that listed in fibre areas


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## Rob_Quads (Jul 17, 2006)

pringle_addict said:


> Virgin Tivo is the best thing ever... I can't imagine not having it now.


bar the fact they block the tivo ipad app


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## Grizzle (Jul 12, 2006)

Rob_Quads said:


> bar the fact they block the tivo ipad app


yeh thats bloody annoying!!!


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## glenn st (Apr 27, 2012)

Sky for me. had the superhub put in only had the thing in 2 weeks than it f*** up. Than few months down the line we move house and they told me they couldnt fit it in the new house an whated me to pay them 175 pound because they couldn't install it in the new house


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## Bustanut (Jun 11, 2011)

I had sky before but went to virgin for the broadband speed. I can't knock the speed as i now get 60mb. I have also got the TiVo box on the XL package which is great but does anyone else find the navigation menus really ****ing annoying and a pain in the **** to use. Also didn't notice any channels missing from my sky service of any significance.


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## Lloyd71 (Aug 21, 2008)

We've got Virgin and haven't really had a single problem. We've got a constant 30mb connection (soon to be 60), TiVo is awesome, and we've not experienced any problems with the Superhub despite having games consoles, phones and computers connected all the time.


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## Grizzle (Jul 12, 2006)

Not experienced any issues with the TiVo, telephone or broadband incl the new super hub which also has 2 games consoles connected, MacBook, iPad, 2 blackberrys and a netbook still showing 20mb which we pay for overall I'm pretty chuffed.


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