My virgin broadband and TV is down, yet again. Half hour wait then cut off on the phone. The auto thing says fixed by 5pm. This happens all the time. Never a delay in taking my money though.
Both blaming each other and still talking about a deal but cant see anything happening,but the channels they are replacing with are less and not great IMHO well maybe a couple look good that's it, ZooMoo ffs another kids channel, would not mind but we are not losing any kids channel.
Anyone ITK re these things only just renewed my contract, can I get out of it as they are not supplying me what we agreed?
This is the bite with VM. They have a genuinely good product and when it's working it knocks spots off the competition by its nature of being a total fibre optic network. Their after sales care is abominable
This is the bite with VM. They have a genuinely good product and when it's working it knocks spots off the competition by its nature of being a total fibre optic network. Their after sales care is abominable
I had Virgin for years and ntlworld before, when their broadband works it's untouchable. However after months of poor service I packed it in. Big shame.
Virgin Media drops 10 channels including Dave & UK Gold because of a dispute over fees with owners UK TV but Virgin have added some extra channels including Freesport. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-44915060
Virgin didnt drop them.
Virgin tried to pay less for them and UK TV stood firm.
As customers are saying Virgins prices have gone up and they are trying to pay less its a piss take.
Can't believe anyone would have any provider other than Sky. Heard nothing but horror stories about Virgin and BT too which I had as well as Sky a few years ago.
Can't believe anyone would have any provider other than Sky. Heard nothing but horror stories about Virgin and BT too which I had as well as Sky a few years ago.
Used to get 3mb/s broadband speed when I was paying for 100mb/s. That's when the broadband was actually working at all. Constantly complained but they never resolved the problem.
When my contract finally ran out and I called them to cancel it, I was faced with the most aggressive and arrogant "customer service" representative I've ever come across. She blamed me for not complaining enough (!) when actually I did on a monthly basis.
Can't believe anyone would have any provider other than Sky. Heard nothing but horror stories about Virgin and BT too which I had as well as Sky a few years ago.
Can't believe anyone would have any provider other than Sky. Heard nothing but horror stories about Virgin and BT too which I had as well as Sky a few years ago.
I have used Sky, BT and Virgin over the past three years. Through my frustrations and pain I have learned the following.
Sky use BTs network to deliver their internet, so speeds will be pretty much the same. If the BT line goes down, then so does the Sky one, but not necessarily the other way around. Virgins internet speeds absolutely blow the competition away.
Sky's TV box is easily the best, Virgins old TiVO box was a nightmare and the current BT one feels ancient.
Virgin will make repairs free of charge, while Sky and BT charge for call outs.
Customer service at both Virgin and Sky are pretty good, while customer care at BT is horrendous. Actually some of the worst I've experienced for anything ever.
Providing everything is working in the order it should be I'd use the following.
Internet - Virgin TV - Sky Landlane - BT
That said, for financial reasons I wouldn't recommend having three contracts. Just decide what element is best for you and wangle a deal.
Can't believe anyone would have any provider other than Sky. Heard nothing but horror stories about Virgin and BT too which I had as well as Sky a few years ago.
And your point is you weirdo?
I'll ignore the unnecessary and uncalled-for sleight and explain it for you.
You stated you can't believe anyone would have any provider other than Sky and went on to state that you had BT. I'd suggest that would make it very believable.
I don't know how old you are but I guess that you are in your early 20's. I was speaking from a point of painful experience. As you can see I said I HAD BT. I have had Sky or BSkyB or whatever they call themselves since November 1989 in the four different properties I have owned or lived in since then. That also included Videotron Cable and all their pseudonyms. I was talking from an enlightened, experienced position which would have been obvious to anyone apart from Clever Dicks like you. You really need to take a day off from trying to be clever because you just keep failing. I took on a BT Cable service many years ago which allowed me to watch the away Ashes series in 1998/99 from my bedroom via a box plugged into my phone line when to run the feed from my Sky connection downstairs meant drilling through loads of cables into my bedroom in those days which my wife was against. It was useless and went down a lot. We are now in 2018 and my Sky contract gives me a very small extra box which allows me to plug into any TV set via a simple HMDI cable and I can watch anything in any of my 8 bed/reception rooms. Back in 1998/9 the BT feed was a nightmare although Sky downstairs worked fine. And I have BT Sport via Sky too so I got this years Ashes. Do you understand now you weirdo?
My Virgin internet regularly drops and is not as fast as they claim. You can get good customer service, usually from one of their UK operatives, but the standards are getting worse and worse. The Indian call centre staff are the worse I have ever experienced. It feels to me to be a company on the slide! In this competitive sector, when you are more interested in screwing money out of your customers than giving them a decent service, you will only go one way!
I don't know how old you are but I guess that you are in your early 20's. I was speaking from a point of painful experience. As you can see I said I HAD BT. I have had Sky or BSkyB or whatever they call themselves since November 1989 in the four different properties I have owned or lived in since then. That also included Videotron Cable and all their pseudonyms. I was talking from an enlightened, experienced position which would have been obvious to anyone apart from Clever Dicks like you. You really need to take a day off from trying to be clever because you just keep failing. I took on a BT Cable service many years ago which allowed me to watch the away Ashes series in 1998/99 from my bedroom via a box plugged into my phone line when to run the feed from my Sky connection downstairs meant drilling through loads of cables into my bedroom in those days which my wife was against. It was useless and went down a lot. We are now in 2018 and my Sky contract gives me a very small extra box which allows me to plug into any TV set via a simple HMDI cable and I can watch anything in any of my 8 bed/reception rooms. Back in 1998/9 the BT feed was a nightmare although Sky downstairs worked fine. And I have BT Sport via Sky too so I got this years Ashes. Do you understand now you weirdo?
So Virgin are saying it is because they are not willing to pay inflated prices and UKTV says it was proposing a reduction in what it pays them. I am a Virgin Media customer but not for much longer. I think they are a company on the rocks that doesn't respect its customers. The only delay for me is selecting the best alternative!
Not a racist remark, but most of the Indian call centre operatives I have had to deal with make it up as they go along! Virgin has to be aware of this!
Their call centre is very painful to deal with if the issue isn't cut & dry. Any technical issues have been dealt with fairly swiftly though.
The perfect world would be a merge of Sky & Virgin, but that's never going to happen!
In a perfect world communications firms would be fighting and scrapping to build a network with the BDUK money available but they seem happy to leave it to Openreach and then moan that they want a slice of that network without putting in a penny to construct it. Whilst Virgins workmanship in creating the network is disgusting, I'm never surprised how many people are prepared to accept the mess they make when balanced with the option of becoming one of VMs customers as they offer a very decent product.
So Virgin are saying it is because they are not willing to pay inflated prices and UKTV says it was proposing a reduction in what it pays them. I am a Virgin Media customer but not for much longer. I think they are a company on the rocks that doesn't respect its customers. The only delay for me is selecting the best alternative!
Not a racist remark, but most of the Indian call centre operatives I have had to deal with make it up as they go along! Virgin has to be aware of this!
Ultimately as UKTV Play have sold off the Video-on-Demand rights for their premium content to Netflix, (e.g. the popular old BBC sitcoms on Gold) - the value of their overall 10-channel offering has weakened, so they should be offering it for less. You can say that VM would still have the linear channels, but rightly or wrongly the 'traditional' pay TV providers are prioritising the strengthening of their apps and on-demand products. Adding to that, UKTV Play have sold off this VoD content exclusively to a direct competitor in Netflix, so Virgin Media (and the other providers) have a difficult conversation to have. I expect that Sky/BT will have to have the same negotiation with them (if they've not already done so) and they have to make the decision whether they meet UKTV Play's valuation of their content or not.
Now that's not to say Virgin Media haven't gone in with something insulting, and from the looks of the social media campaign from UKTV Play, they might well have done - but my two cents is that it's not all one-way. I'm sure that if Virgin Media could take all of the free-to-air channels (those on Freeview such as Dave, Watch etc.) and drop the 'premium' ones, freeing up budget to spend on entertainment elsewhere, they would do. However, UKTV need subscribers on their paid channels and know that VM have paying customers who expect all of their existing content that is also available on Sky, BT etc... so would take the approach that it's all their channels or nothing. They also know/knew that Virgin Media would take a beating in the media for not paying up, given that their customers pay no small amount of money to them for TV content on a monthly basis.
By allowing things to get this far though Virgin Media have either undervalued linear TV, particularly with these types of easy-watching channels - or they're a long, long way off on agreeing a price. I think VM also know that they can hurt UKTV Play by withdrawing their customer base immediately, whereas their risk of gradually losing unhappy subscribers as a result is in the longer-term due to contracting etc., so they can ride it out until a deal is reached.
Personally, I think they'll make a deal as both sides lose until they do. Virgin may think that they can hold out longer financially, but they're taking a hammering PR-wise in the meantime. And... whilst they both lose, so does the consumer - so it's a bit of a shit sandwich all around.
In a perfect world communications firms would be fighting and scrapping to build a network with the BDUK money available but they seem happy to leave it to Openreach and then moan that they want a slice of that network without putting in a penny to construct it. Whilst Virgins workmanship in creating the network is disgusting, I'm never surprised how many people are prepared to accept the mess they make when balanced with the option of becoming one of VMs customers as they offer a very decent product.
That's pretty much spot-on.
The likes of Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone have no interest in building anything like a nationwide FTTP network because they'd never recoup the money.
TalkTalk are doing 5 million homes with FTTP (although I doubt they will get anywhere near that), BT already provide FTTP to around 2 million and VDSL to around 25 million and Virgin cover around 15 million homes with cable.
You've got some smaller players like Gigaclear doing FTTP in rural areas and Hyperoptic doing apartments in the big cities but nothing of real scale.
Bottom line is that people can do all they need to do on a 30Mbps BT VDSL service for about 35/month so they simply won't pay the extra for a high-speed fibre service.
BBC Radio5Live tonight reporting that Virgin Media may lose ITV by the weekend. They are a shit company. They waste so much money; every week for at least the last 6 years I have received a marketing package from VM, sometimes just a letter, other times a full 10 page A4 pack and I'm pretty certain I'm not an exclusive target!
My and my family's virgin media email accounts stopped working last week last week, spend a couple of days trying to change setting on phones & lap tops to reactivate them. Finally rang them on Sunday morning for them to tell me that they had stopped them due to spam. Yesterday a letter in the post informing me that my email accounts had been suspended.
It doesn't affect me as I can leave Virgin when I like, but I think that as in a case like this, it should be a default situation that you can leave a company that no longer offers the same package that it advertised and you signed up to.
BBC Radio5Live tonight reporting that Virgin Media may lose ITV by the weekend. They are a shit company. They waste so much money; every week for at least the last 6 years I have received a marketing package from VM, sometimes just a letter, other times a full 10 page A4 pack and I'm pretty certain I'm not an exclusive target!
Me to, literally over the last 10 years they've sent me an oak trees worth of paper.
Comments
The auto thing says fixed by 5pm.
This happens all the time.
Never a delay in taking my money though.
Anyone ITK re these things only just renewed my contract, can I get out of it as they are not supplying me what we agreed?
Virgin tried to pay less for them and UK TV stood firm.
As customers are saying Virgins prices have gone up and they are trying to pay less its a piss take.
Used to get 3mb/s broadband speed when I was paying for 100mb/s. That's when the broadband was actually working at all. Constantly complained but they never resolved the problem.
When my contract finally ran out and I called them to cancel it, I was faced with the most aggressive and arrogant "customer service" representative I've ever come across. She blamed me for not complaining enough (!) when actually I did on a monthly basis.
I would never touch them again with a bargepole.
Sky use BTs network to deliver their internet, so speeds will be pretty much the same. If the BT line goes down, then so does the Sky one, but not necessarily the other way around.
Virgins internet speeds absolutely blow the competition away.
Sky's TV box is easily the best, Virgins old TiVO box was a nightmare and the current BT one feels ancient.
Virgin will make repairs free of charge, while Sky and BT charge for call outs.
Customer service at both Virgin and Sky are pretty good, while customer care at BT is horrendous. Actually some of the worst I've experienced for anything ever.
Providing everything is working in the order it should be I'd use the following.
Internet - Virgin
TV - Sky
Landlane - BT
That said, for financial reasons I wouldn't recommend having three contracts. Just decide what element is best for you and wangle a deal.
You stated you can't believe anyone would have any provider other than Sky and went on to state that you had BT. I'd suggest that would make it very believable.
I don't know how old you are but I guess that you are in your early 20's. I was speaking from a point of painful experience. As you can see I said I HAD BT.
I have had Sky or BSkyB or whatever they call themselves since November 1989 in the four different properties I have owned or lived in since then. That also included Videotron Cable and all their pseudonyms.
I was talking from an enlightened, experienced position which would have been obvious to anyone apart from Clever Dicks like you. You really need to take a day off from trying to be clever because you just keep failing.
I took on a BT Cable service many years ago which allowed me to watch the away Ashes series in 1998/99 from my bedroom via a box plugged into my phone line when to run the feed from my Sky connection downstairs meant drilling through loads of cables into my bedroom in those days which my wife was against. It was useless and went down a lot.
We are now in 2018 and my Sky contract gives me a very small extra box which allows me to plug into any TV set via a simple HMDI cable and I can watch anything in any of my 8 bed/reception rooms. Back in 1998/9 the BT feed was a nightmare although Sky downstairs worked fine. And I have BT Sport via Sky too so I got this years Ashes.
Do you understand now you weirdo?
The perfect world would be a merge of Sky & Virgin, but that's never going to happen!
Now that's not to say Virgin Media haven't gone in with something insulting, and from the looks of the social media campaign from UKTV Play, they might well have done - but my two cents is that it's not all one-way. I'm sure that if Virgin Media could take all of the free-to-air channels (those on Freeview such as Dave, Watch etc.) and drop the 'premium' ones, freeing up budget to spend on entertainment elsewhere, they would do. However, UKTV need subscribers on their paid channels and know that VM have paying customers who expect all of their existing content that is also available on Sky, BT etc... so would take the approach that it's all their channels or nothing. They also know/knew that Virgin Media would take a beating in the media for not paying up, given that their customers pay no small amount of money to them for TV content on a monthly basis.
By allowing things to get this far though Virgin Media have either undervalued linear TV, particularly with these types of easy-watching channels - or they're a long, long way off on agreeing a price. I think VM also know that they can hurt UKTV Play by withdrawing their customer base immediately, whereas their risk of gradually losing unhappy subscribers as a result is in the longer-term due to contracting etc., so they can ride it out until a deal is reached.
Personally, I think they'll make a deal as both sides lose until they do. Virgin may think that they can hold out longer financially, but they're taking a hammering PR-wise in the meantime. And... whilst they both lose, so does the consumer - so it's a bit of a shit sandwich all around.
The likes of Sky, TalkTalk and Vodafone have no interest in building anything like a nationwide FTTP network because they'd never recoup the money.
TalkTalk are doing 5 million homes with FTTP (although I doubt they will get anywhere near that), BT already provide FTTP to around 2 million and VDSL to around 25 million and Virgin cover around 15 million homes with cable.
You've got some smaller players like Gigaclear doing FTTP in rural areas and Hyperoptic doing apartments in the big cities but nothing of real scale.
Bottom line is that people can do all they need to do on a 30Mbps BT VDSL service for about 35/month so they simply won't pay the extra for a high-speed fibre service.
They are a shit company. They waste so much money; every week for at least the last 6 years I have received a marketing package from VM, sometimes just a letter, other times a full 10 page A4 pack and I'm pretty certain I'm not an exclusive target!