Like a Virgin, Better than Sky Every timmmeeeeee (virginmedia.com)

Member Name: stephbond89

Product:	virginmedia.com
Date:	14/11/09 (70 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy to use, cheaper than Sky in some ways, good Customer Service ! On Demand service is excellent

Disadvantages: Tied into a contract, not available everywhere yet, cannot buy individual channels like with Sky .

Virgin Media

== About ==
Virgin Media once formally known as NTL has been one of the most popular service providers for the last 5-8 years, getting more and more popular with their innovative way of getting your TV, Broadband and telephone to you.

Instead of using cables, Virgin use fibre optic which is where the picture, internet and telephone are send down the small glass wires rather than down a metal cable. Think of those little lights you get, which look like hair sticking out of the top, and when you turn on the light, it is transported right to the tip of the "hairs", rather than coming out all over the place. This is how Virgin work, the images are transported directly to your TV via these little fibres.

Virgin Media offer your whole package together without having to pay extra bills for line rental to BT. With Virgin you can get TV, Broadband and Telephone, choosing your own "bundle" to suit your direct needs.

For example, we watch a lot of different TV channels with my husband been a big Discovery fan, whilst I watch all the Americanised channels (Living, Sky1 etc) as well as the kids channels and Music Channels, so we decided we would get the XL package for TV, where you get over 166 channels (this is the same as having all 6 packages on Sky), we don't watch Sky Sports and the Sky Movies packages when we were with Sky were getting boring so we didn't bother with that either. We use the Internet a lot, but we got the lowest as at 10MB broadband it was plenty for us, and 5MB more than we had with the free Sky Broadband which we had had before, and as we barely use the phone, we got the small telephone package. You can of course get smaller TV, larger internet and larger phone if you use those more and watch hardly any TV!

Virgin offer a Virgin+ HD, where you can have a box which allows you to Rewind, Record and re-watch live TV, and also watch the HD channels at no extra cost (if you have the XL TV package), even if you don't have a HD TV you can still have this box, and still watch the HD channels but they won't be shown in High Def if your TV doesn't have the technology!

Virgin, run by Richard Branson who we all know of, is quickly becoming the most popular Service provider for TV, Broadband and Telephone, and I am here now to try and persuade you that it is 100% better than Sky, and that I don't know where these other people have been getting their TV subscriptions from...but my experience of Virgin Media has been top notch.

== How to get Virgin Media ==
Getting Virgin Media couldn't be easier, you can go to their website, www.virginmedia.com, and type in your postcode, you will be told there and then if you can have Virgin Media in your area (there are some areas where you can not get Virgin at the moment as they don't have cables everywhere, my parents in a small village in Lancaster cannot get Virgin, so this is one huge down side), but in Warrington and the surrounding areas you can get Virgin, but your best typing your Postcode in to find out!

Once you have established you can have Virgin, you can then choose your bundle, either choosing on they already have set out, or creating your own personally for you. There is no talking to someone on the telephone who is trying to sell you higher priced goods, and you can read through everything before you make your choice, and can have a good think about what you need, and mess around with the different bundles finding out the prices.

Once you have messed around and selected your bundle you wish to have, you then go through a quick credit check, this is done online, and you are informed straight away whether you have been approved or not, we have terrible credit (no CCJ's or Bankruptcy but still very bad!) and we were accepted, so I think this is more about bankruptcy or maybe to check you have never been with Virgin before and have outstanding bills with them from another property (this is more than likely what it is for!).

You'll be told what your "one off payment" is to be; this is for your installation payment and your payment for the box you have chosen, this needs to be paid before they will install your package, you'll also be told how much your first bill will be, and also what your other bills will be. Once you put this through, you'll get an email, giving you information about how to pay your one off payment, to do this, you can call them up, and they'll take the payment from a Debit or Credit card, and then they'll give you a date when you'll get a man coming to install your box, and phone line etc.

Your first bill will be coming around a month after that, which may be higher than expected as you're paying for two month's subscription.

Once you have been installed, you're under a 12 month contract, and you need to pay I think its £150 to get out of the Subscription early, so please do beware of this, and think about the commitment it means to have this subscription. Like a mobile telephone on contract you cannot come out of it early, unlike with Sky when you can leave whenever you wish.

_How Long will I have to wait to be installed?_
From the date you phone up, you can expect to have to wait around 2 weeks for an installation date, each installation can take up to 2 hours if all your wires have to be fitted, and in your area there might only be 2 installation men, so you may have to wait, but as soon as they arrive and install you, you are set up, and can use all the services straight away, unlike Sky where I had to wait a month before my Internet was up and running!!!!! It all depends on how many people in your area have booked for installation at the same time as you, the time of year and where you live as to how long you'll need to wait for installation. But I had to wait two weeks, this was fine by me as I had Sky still, but two weeks can be a long time for someone who has no other TV service provider and no internet!

== Price ==
The price is pretty similar to Sky, at the moment we pay £35 a month plus £11 for phone line (with Virgin), for the XL TV package, Large Broadband Package and Small Phone Package (free evening and weekend calls to land lines). With Sky we paid around £40 for the same package, plus £14.50 to BT for a phone line. We also had Sky Movies, making our Sky bill around £65 a month so we're saving quite a bit each month with Virgin!

It all depends on what packages you get as to how much your Virgin package is going to be, but here is an example of the price it would be for the highest package you can get:

XXL Broadband (50MB)
XL TV (166 channels)
XL Phone (Unlimited anytime landline calls)
V+ HD box
Sky Movies
Sky Sports

Will at present (as of 12/10/09) cost you £75 as a one off payment for the box with Free Installation.

The Bill will then be £44 for two months (this is an offer at the moment of two months billed at half price, and this is with your Virgin Phone line included), and then £82.50 a month after that, plus £11 a month for the Virgin phone line.

The smallest package you can have is billed as follows:

L Broadband (this is the lowest you can get) 10MB
M+ TV (65 channels)
M Phone (Unlimited Evening and Weekend calls to landline)

This is FREE for the first two months (apart from your phone line!), then £19.50 afterwards, plus your £11 for the Virgin Phone line. This is without the Virgin+ box, to have this with the M+ TV package you do have to pay an extra £5 a month. The is no one off payment with this package as there is no Virgin+ HD box to buy.

The prices do change a lot, and there are different offers going all the time, like we got a Virgin+ HD box for just £45 and free installation with two months free apart from the phone line. So we bought at a very good time.

It all depends on your own preference as to how much your own package will be, but this gives you a good idea as to how much you'll be spending on average.

== Service ==
The Service we have got up to now has been excellent, the Installation lasted only around half an hour as we already had all the cables connected to the house from the people who had lived here before us. Although we had waited all day for him to arrive, and it was around 6pm when he showed up, it was quick and he cleaned up all the mess he had made.

Since having the Virgin installed in October, we have yet to pay a bill, as the first two months are free, and the billing date is quite far off, we don't pay our first bill until December 10th! Which has been great for us!

Although we have the lowest internet it is very fast, and we have had no problems with it at all since installing it all, which was easy! Going to show, the smaller broadband was perfect for us, and we didn't need a higher one!

We also found we get by fine without the Movies as we use the Movies on Demand which has a huge collection of films ranging from 99p up to £3.95, movies old and new rather than new releases which is great, and 100% better than Box Office with Sky, as you can watch them whenever you want, not at a set time. You buy the film and can watch it whenever you like in 24 hours, and as many times as you want in those 24 hours, so if you have a kid who falls asleep, they can watch the film again the next morning at no extra cost!

I love the Music On Demand service where you can listen to any music any time, there are even playlists which you can choose to listen to with no adverts, there are around 5 genres of these playlists and they're different every week!

I am loving the Virgin+ which I wanted with Sky but they wanted £100 for a box even though we had been with them for a year!

We have had no problems with the TV, though at times it can "stick" for a couple of seconds but I don't know if this is the Virgin or the TV channel as we are changing over to Digital as it always seems to be on ITV that it happens.

Everything up to now has been great with Virgin and we are very happy with it.

== Compared to other services ==
We had Sky for a year before we got Virgin, and had a lot of problems with them telling us one thing and delivering another. They told us we got 3 months half price Sky Sports and Sky Movies, then charged us full price, putting under financial strain when we got the £100 bill one month which was very unexpected!

Although their internet was top notch, and we had no problems with the receiving of the TV channels we weren't very happy with the Customer Service aspect of Sky, the fact we had been with them for the year yet we had no right to have the free Sky Plus boxes which they were giving away to new customers was very upsetting to us, and made us feel inferior to customers who were coming into the company new.

The main reason we moved to Virgin was due to the lower cost to us, and the fact we could have a Virgin+ box for £45 with free installation and we would no longer have to pay BT an extra bill, but we are now 100% happier with them than we were with Sky. We were a little apprehensive after hearing all the bad stories on here, but we have had a great experience up to now.

Virgin is definitely more worthy of the money as you do get a much bigger service with the On Demand service which is free to XL TV customers (apart from movies which you have a credit limit of £210 a month for).

You can choose your own bundles easily, but unlike Sky cannot pick separate channels which you can have for £1 a month extra (i.e. if you wanted just Playhouse Disney for your child but no other kids channels, on Sky you can do this for £1 a month extra but on Virgin you can't), and also you are stuck in a 12 month contract once you sign up with Virgin which could cause problems should you be unhappy with the service, again unlike Sky.

I definitely recommend Virgin Media to anyone looking change from Freeview or FreeSat if you can get it in your area!

10/10 for Virgin Media!

Summary: I am not looking back, I'm saving money and I can puase rewind and record live TV!