Uk broadband: Can anyone recommend switching from virgin to sky?

[Zedsdead185]

Hi all,

I've been on virgin boradband since it was ntl, but the service we are getting currently is just unbearable and not worth the money we are paying, so we are planning on switching ISP.

So far, the beast deal for our needs that I can find is the sky broadband unlimited option. Can anyone recommend this at all? Can anyone on sky recommend them over virgin?

One thing I did notice is that the package will be slightly slower than our advertised speeds (sky was about 7.5-8 MB/s , our virgin speed was reportedly 10 MB/s after an online test but I hardly ever seen that speed whilst using the internet)

The reason we are switching is because the amount of times the internet just goes down on a weekly basis is unbelievable. They do offer to lower the bill price a little when they admit that there is a problem, but that isn't every month and we actually would rather have working internet over our money back if you see what I mean.

Thanks for any help, Greg

edit: And by the way, I am aware that 10MB/s doesn't equate to 10Mb downloaded a second. It should equate to 1.2mb a second, but it is almost always around the 1mb a second. I don't mind the slower speed of sky, just as long as it doesn't slow down so much and cut off completely all the time.

 

[guy curlewis]

i switched from sky to virgin and i couldnt be happier. the speed of sky was very unreliable for me and i was on the phone on a monthly basis.

I now have the 100mb line with virgin and consistently have speeds of 95-102mb consistently

Sky was awful for me

 

[Porco]

I can recommend it, purely because Virgin Media plague my house with junk-mail all the time! And because half of it is addressed 'to the occupier' or 'to the householder' there isn't any point trying to get it stopped.

If you want a more technical argument, 10Mb/s is a speed more typical of a decent ADSL connection (is that what you have?), if you're not using fibre I'd say there really isn't any point whatsoever to have Virgin as an ISP anyway. And even then, raw top speed isn't everything.

If you are having problems with your connection and it's ADSL though you might want to investigate things like your router, your phone line and your filters too - otherwise changing ISP might not cure the issues you're experiencing anyway.

 

[Moonjumper]

If you are on fibre with the internet going down regularly, then you have a problem. Similar was happening to us, but it turned out to be the modem. virgin sent a new one and the internet has not gone down once in the year since then.

Has your area had the Virgin speed upgrade yet? It has only been a month here since the service went from 10 Mb/s to 30.

 

[Umbongo]

Get your modem checked if you haven't. They can check it remotely and will send you a new one if there are issues with it. Had the same problem and solution as Moonjumper.

 

[7031]

Hmm yeah, if you don't have one already I'd see if it's possible for you to get a SuperHub - if you're lucky it'll mean a move to the 30Mbps tier, plus if you're using a standard modem it'll mean a move from DOCSIS 2.0 to DOCSIS 3.0, which should improve things a fair bit.

That said, I've had some drops during the day lately but it's only happened recently so it's possible it's just network maintenance - I'm not likely to be on when it happens (only noticed because of ping graphs) so I'm just going to wait it out.

Honestly I wouldn't recommend switching to Sky Broadband - in my experience the service was pretty poor. BT Infinity on the other hand...

 

[LaunchpadBS]

I had an issue with my virgin hub after moving home, was on the 10Mb contract, they replaced my router with. He super hub after we complained a few times, still no joy, complained twice more and they replaced the super hub and upgraded us to 30Mb for free, no more issues, I now get download speeds of up to 3MB/s, just complain, if ur a long time customer they'll sort u out

 

[Kissaragi]

I'd be making a big fuss with virgin to sort out your connection troubles first, your not getting what your paying for at the moment.

 

[Kebabselector]

I can recommend it, purely because Virgin Media plague my house with junk-mail all the time! And because half of it is addressed 'to the occupier' or 'to the householder' there isn't any point trying to get it stopped.

You obviously made the same mistake as me. Calling and telling them to stop contacting me. TalkTalk have done the same. As much as I detest Sky (many because of who owned them) at least they stopped phoning/mailing when I asked them.

 

[Fed]

They're both shocking. I had Virgin Media throughout University with utterly abysmal speeds (fibre-optic). I've now had Sky broadband for 12 months, again, utterly abysmal. Prior to this I had Be Broadband (the only ISP I've paid for which delivered the speeds advertised) which was insanely quick and having used my friend's BT Infinity connection, I've discovered I need to stop living in poorly connected places.

 

[realitystops]

Change

try MACACE.NET

just brilliant for macs

not cheap - but - brilliant

 

[Primus84]

If it's proper Virgin broadband (you live in a cabled area rather than getting it over a phone-line on ADSL) then stick with Virgin and get them to fix it. Virgin still have the best broadband around, even when compared to BT Infinity.

 

[will waters]

Give plusnet a thought, we use plusnet at our place and we always have done because they offer the best value, we have been using them since 2001 and have not looked back (although we have recently got fibre which makes it a lot quicker, 36Mb a sec!!), we also use a plusnet line at my friends business and they get good speed's all the time.

Hope this helps

Will