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Sky or Virgin?

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By *aycee OP   Couple  over a year ago

northampton

Ok we are moving house in the near future and I have the opportunity to leave Sky and move to cable (Virgin). Which of the two would people recommend?

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By *randmrsfreakyCouple  over a year ago

alfreton near chesterfield

They are both a rip off, we get ripped off monthly by sky

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

ive had both and virgin tellys much better, we swapped over to sky but my kids kicked up such a fuss about the lack of channels on sky, their catch up and tv on demande is crap, i had to swap back to shut them up lol

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

[Removed by poster at 11/01/11 12:07:40]

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

Sky for television (£51/month for everything except HD, Adult channels and Box Office), although you may get an introductory offer. When you speak to them tell them you are with Virgin but you're open to incentives to switch to Sky (trust me, I'm a Virgin engineer and both companies have a certain amount of deals they can offer per week, but don't call before a Thursday as they hold back on deals in the early part of the week so they still have some left by the end of it. If you wait till Friday or Saturday most of the deals will be gone.)

As for telephone and broadband, go with Virgin on those, as BT's broadband is unreliable at best and completely useless as worst. Telephone landlines are no big deal these days but handy to have one so if you go with Virgin for BB it makes sense to have your landline with them too.

Remember: Haggle with them, they will cut you a deal.

Good luck.

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By *mumaWoman  over a year ago

Livingston

Sorry Wishy, but just LOL'd at the phrase "virgin engineer". oh my dirty mind

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Sorry Wishy, but just LOL'd at the phrase "virgin engineer". oh my dirty mind "

Hey, I AM a virgin.......... engineer.

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By *uro anchorMan  over a year ago

Coventry


"Ok we are moving house in the near future and I have the opportunity to leave Sky and move to cable (Virgin). Which of the two would people recommend?

"

i do house removals u need a quote ?

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By *aycee OP   Couple  over a year ago

northampton


"Sorry Wishy, but just LOL'd at the phrase "virgin engineer". oh my dirty mind

Hey, I AM a virgin.......... engineer. "

Ty Wishy.I hadnt thought about having the tv with one and BB with the other...I just had all with one in my head..That is something to think about.

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By *aycee OP   Couple  over a year ago

northampton


"Ok we are moving house in the near future and I have the opportunity to leave Sky and move to cable (Virgin). Which of the two would people recommend?

i do house removals u need a quote ?"

No thanks we are all sorted.

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By *uro anchorMan  over a year ago

Coventry


"Ok we are moving house in the near future and I have the opportunity to leave Sky and move to cable (Virgin). Which of the two would people recommend?

i do house removals u need a quote ?

No thanks we are all sorted. "

im cheap lol xx good luck xx

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

hi i prefer sky and have had both.

i have the tv in 3 rooms,broadband which is excellent and the telephone and i love been able to record programmes or series because i do a lot of my work from home

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

Virgin took over telewest here in the North west, still have the same dead brain dumb fucks working for them, I'd never move to virgin no matter how cheaper they are, Sky for me.

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By *iamondladyWoman  over a year ago

titsville

Virgin

Saw the word and thought you were talking about me again!!!

We have had sky for years and never tried virgin so not able to comment really although I believe Virgin's broadband is great.

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By *umourCouple  over a year ago

Rushden

We have telephone, Broadband, Television and Mobile (x2) with Virgin (previously Tele Cential then NTL). Had a couple of breakdowns, one that required a new modem, but that is since 1991!

Just checked our broadband speed (speedtest.net) and it was 19.3 Mbits on a 20 Mbit connection. We usually check it at 7pm to get a truer figure for when we use it and it has never dropped below 15! BT told us that they can do a max of 5.5 at our house and sky, who advertise up to 20 MBits but also tell us that we are bound by BT, who supply their infrastructure

Our neighbour is changing from Sky to Virgin because he tells me that he gets worse reception in heavy cloud??? I am no expert on any of this, but that is what we have found.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"We have telephone, Broadband, Television and Mobile (x2) with Virgin (previously Tele Cential then NTL). Had a couple of breakdowns, one that required a new modem, but that is since 1991!

Just checked our broadband speed (speedtest.net) and it was 19.3 Mbits on a 20 Mbit connection. We usually check it at 7pm to get a truer figure for when we use it and it has never dropped below 15! BT told us that they can do a max of 5.5 at our house and sky, who advertise up to 20 MBits but also tell us that we are bound by BT, who supply their infrastructure

Our neighbour is changing from Sky to Virgin because he tells me that he gets worse reception in heavy cloud??? I am no expert on any of this, but that is what we have found. "

You are spot on there. speedtest.net is what Virgin engineers use to test their lines and it gives much more accurate results in terms of performance.

Any company selling Broadband packages who are NOT Virgin are selling BT packages. Those are the only two public service backbone providers in the UK. There are a few private backbone providers but they usually centralise their services to businesses that need dedicated private networks.

As for fibre to the house, the ads are misleading as neither company have yet wired a home all the way back to the switch with fibre, it's too expensive. The best they can offer is fibre to the street cabinet where it then breaks down to good old copper wires.

With regards to Virgin's TV service, it is delivered via copper cores in the ground that are now 15-20 years old in some cases and it will start to break down over the next 4-5 years, at which point TV serices will be switched over to MSAN cabinets (multi service access nodes, which is what I am installing now). Thse nodes have the capability to deliver 200mb broadband as well as voice, TV and video on demand.

BT cannot compete with that as they don't have the infrastructure to deliver high speed television and SKY can't compete with it either as their services stalls totally in bad atmospheric conditions.

Only Virgin can off reliable underground TV, telephone and data, but their TV set-top box is sluggish and their prices are too high, which is why we are with Sky for our TV.

The future is Virgin though. Sky will become nothing more than a programme provider who will need Virgin to pump out their content, BT will continue in the telephone/broadband market but they're up against technology they can't match (partially due to their hands being tied as a former govt owned company).

I can tell you right now that the end of scheduled programming is already in sight. In the future you will pay to watch what you want to watch on a pay per _iew basis. You'll pay something like 20p for Eastenders/Corrie etc. but you'll get free news. Films and Sports will be the premium services much like they are now and they'll cost something in the region of £1+ per _iew (except boxing which a fookin rip off anyway).

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By *umourCouple  over a year ago

Rushden

Thanks for that Wishy, always good to have someone in the know letting us in on it!

A question for you.. Tivo... Just had notification about registering for this and it does look good, but in mind of what you said about sluggish set top boxes (ours is bad!) will this be the same? and is the service going to be worth it?

(actually, that is two questions and for that I am going to sit in the corner for ten minutes to reflect on why I deliberately lied to you! )

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Thanks for that Wishy, always good to have someone in the know letting us in on it!

A question for you.. Tivo... Just had notification about registering for this and it does look good, but in mind of what you said about sluggish set top boxes (ours is bad!) will this be the same? and is the service going to be worth it?

(actually, that is two questions and for that I am going to sit in the corner for ten minutes to reflect on why I deliberately lied to you! )"

TiVo is the start of what I've just been describing. On Demand TV, and TiVo has a backwards search so you can go back to the previous week's _iewing to get something you missed, like a one off you didn't watch but when a friend says, "hey, did you see....", you can go back and watch it. That's pretty cool.

TiVo looks good but it's the box itself that will convince me to switch or not, and the fact it has a 1tb Hard Drive in it may go a long way to giving me a shove in their direction. 500 hours of television can be recorded on 1 terrabyte but what I really want to see is the ability to record whatever I want whilst watching a different channel. I find the facility to record two channels simultaneously but having to watch one of them, or a previous recording, a bit pointless. TiVo means you can go back and watch what you missed anyway so it does kind of address that problem. I'll certainly be having a good look at it when I next go into a switch that's got one running already lol. I'll let you know when I do.

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By *atisfy janeWoman  over a year ago

Torquay

[Removed by poster at 11/01/11 13:48:07]

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By *atisfy janeWoman  over a year ago

Torquay

I don't pay for my Sky as we get it for nothing, but still retain my BT Broadband for personal and business use....and it has proved to be absolutely perfect ever since we signed up for the original BT internet Ten years ago.

Fast as we need, and in that Ten years we have only ever had Three days without Broadband due to technical issues.....I call that pretty damn good.

Things to look out for with Sky in the coming months and couple of years....

Integrated home PC facilities in the all new LG Sky + boxes that are due to stream in during early 2012, will mean your Sky box will also be a home PC with a large hard drive and wireless keyboard 'mats'.

Sky are also planning a 3D package that will include an LG Sky+ box and an LG 3D television....the hire/loan of the 3D TV coming in with the new Sky World contract.

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By *prite128Woman  over a year ago

maidstone

as they both stand at the moment I prefer Virgin ( I have this and my other half has sky ). I prefer that i can record a couple of things and still watch a third , the channel selection is better , the on demand range is better, and Im more familiar with the ability to flick through the tv guide and still keep a small version of what you're watching on the screen. I cant stand the muzak on the sky screen when you're using the planner.

virgin is more expensive as a package than sky though, but not hugely.

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By *ex.IncCouple  over a year ago

Castleford

You can turn the 'musak' off. I think its in your box settings menu

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By *prite128Woman  over a year ago

maidstone


"You can turn the 'musak' off. I think its in your box settings menu"

thanks...thats the first thing i'll be doing when i get there friday then!! well, maybe the second

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

i have sky hd and virgin broadband.

i do prefer sky but it is bloody expensive (£63 per month without movies).

but recently ive had to get the sky repair people out at least once a month due to problems with the cables or box and im getting sick of it.

once my 12 months is up i think i'll ditch it all.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

We are on 3

Never had a problem.

Shaz n Tony

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By *iamondladyWoman  over a year ago

titsville

Does anyone know if anyone is going to provide a kind of wireless service for sky or virgin. I live with 3 teenage children all with different taste. I would like the option of having sky or similar supplied to several/ 5 rooms remotely so I don't have cables going all over the house.

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By *athnBobCouple  over a year ago

sandwell

Used to be telewest here and is now Virgin. My experience of them is that they are utter shite! Two weeks to switch on an existing phone line (after a house move) Engineers not turning up when they were supposed to. Next time turning up 3 hours late and sneaking up the drive (or trying to) to pop a "sorry we missed you" card through the letter box that was timed 5 hours earlier. Wanting to rip up a driveway that cost me £2k refusing to return a £25 deposit and shocking manners on the 'help desk' line.

BT line. Out the next day. Ran new copper from our house to the exchange as all lines had been used. Not failed in 10 years.

Sky (using BT line) £22 p/m for basic TV and unlimited BB. Never complained once about download amounts (unlike my last provider (a sister company to plusnet)). No lag on the line so can watch iplayer even at peak times. BB has not 'dropped' once that I have detected since we have had sky BB.

Only downside is that we have had 2 sky boxes stop working in about 8 years but just bought 2nd hand ones off ebay for an average of £12 each.

Virgin might offer faster connections but everything is is complete pants and not worth the time.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Does anyone know if anyone is going to provide a kind of wireless service for sky or virgin. I live with 3 teenage children all with different taste. I would like the option of having sky or similar supplied to several/ 5 rooms remotely so I don't have cables going all over the house."

You can buy a router and connect wireless, if there pc/lappy don't have wireless built in then you can buy a usb wireless dongle.

Virgin and sky give a router for free when you sign up if you don't have the real small package.

Tony

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

If you already have Sky and it's out of contract just ring them up, tell them you are cancelling it and you'll get it half price for 6 months.

That'll give you a little longer to consider your options

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By *iewMan  over a year ago
Forum Mod

Angus & Findhorn

BT for me..

Great Company.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Our neighbour is changing from Sky to Virgin because he tells me that he gets worse reception in heavy cloud??? I am no expert on any of this, but that is what we have found. "

If the dish is sited and aligned correctly this should not be the case. The only thing that will cause reception problems on a correctly sited and aligned dish is snow impacted on the dish face or LNB, othersise weather should not cause any issues with signal quality

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"You can turn the 'musak' off. I think its in your box settings menu"

Yeah there is an option to turn off the EPG 'music'

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By *ummy mummyWoman  over a year ago

southampton-ish

I had no choice when I moved to this house last year as because of it's location( in a kind of valley surrounded by trees) I would be unable to get sky here so I have everything with virgin

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

Virgin as i get triple package ie tv, phone and internet for the same price as Sky tv, i dont need all the channels now my kids are grown up, and i cannot have Sky internet as the connection in the street is too far from my house

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Used to be telewest here and is now Virgin. My experience of them is that they are utter shite! Two weeks to switch on an existing phone line (after a house move) Engineers not turning up when they were supposed to. Next time turning up 3 hours late and sneaking up the drive (or trying to) to pop a "sorry we missed you" card through the letter box that was timed 5 hours earlier. Wanting to rip up a driveway that cost me £2k refusing to return a £25 deposit and shocking manners on the 'help desk' line.

BT line. Out the next day. Ran new copper from our house to the exchange as all lines had been used. Not failed in 10 years.

Sky (using BT line) £22 p/m for basic TV and unlimited BB. Never complained once about download amounts (unlike my last provider (a sister company to plusnet)). No lag on the line so can watch iplayer even at peak times. BB has not 'dropped' once that I have detected since we have had sky BB.

Only downside is that we have had 2 sky boxes stop working in about 8 years but just bought 2nd hand ones off ebay for an average of £12 each.

Virgin might offer faster connections but everything is is complete pants and not worth the time."

See now i have never had any problems with Telewest/Virgin, in fact they often go out of their way to provide a good service, and i dont have to do anything other than ring them to get that

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Used to be telewest here and is now Virgin. My experience of them is that they are utter shite! Two weeks to switch on an existing phone line (after a house move) Engineers not turning up when they were supposed to. Next time turning up 3 hours late and sneaking up the drive (or trying to) to pop a "sorry we missed you" card through the letter box that was timed 5 hours earlier. Wanting to rip up a driveway that cost me £2k refusing to return a £25 deposit and shocking manners on the 'help desk' line.

BT line. Out the next day. Ran new copper from our house to the exchange as all lines had been used. Not failed in 10 years.

Sky (using BT line) £22 p/m for basic TV and unlimited BB. Never complained once about download amounts (unlike my last provider (a sister company to plusnet)). No lag on the line so can watch iplayer even at peak times. BB has not 'dropped' once that I have detected since we have had sky BB.

Only downside is that we have had 2 sky boxes stop working in about 8 years but just bought 2nd hand ones off ebay for an average of £12 each.

Virgin might offer faster connections but everything is is complete pants and not worth the time.

See now i have never had any problems with Telewest/Virgin, in fact they often go out of their way to provide a good service, and i dont have to do anything other than ring them to get that "

hope your ok kitten xxx

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

One thing to remember is that the Sky "helpline" is charged at a per minute rate,... much to my parents chagrin!

Also the Virgin picture quality is definitely better for SD pictures when compared to my parents Sky HD box. (both have same model of TV, same settings on TV and boxes, 1080i etc) For HD pictures I can't see anything in it.

Virgin Box is a bit slow (Scientific Atlantic), but newer ones are supposed to be better and I hope have more HD recording space. Current box only allows around 20 hours of HD recording!

My download speed is always a rock steady 20Mb/s.

Catchup and TV on demand are quite useful.

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Virgin Box is a bit slow (Scientific Atlantic), but newer ones are supposed to be better and I hope have more HD recording space. Current box only allows around 20 hours of HD recording!

Catchup and TV on demand are quite useful."

As explained above, the new TiVo boxes have a 1 terrabyte hard drive in them which will store up to 500 hours of programmes. It also has a backwards search facility that allows you to search back up to one week to get programmes you missed. Very handy.

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By *ouplefunukCouple  over a year ago

North Bristol


"as they both stand at the moment I prefer Virgin ( I have this and my other half has sky ). I prefer that i can record a couple of things and still watch a third , the channel selection is better , the on demand range is better, and Im more familiar with the ability to flick through the tv guide and still keep a small version of what you're watching on the screen. I cant stand the muzak on the sky screen when you're using the planner.

virgin is more expensive as a package than sky though, but not hugely. "

What sprite said. Plus, Virgin boxes are HD. Sky are such rip off merchants - charge you for the box, then charge a monthly fee to get the flipping service that your telly and the box will do!

The only drawback with Virgin (for us) is that they appear to have forgotten about Bristol in their coverage. Only a very small part of Bristol has Virgin (or the fibre optic cables anyway - the other deal isn't worth it)

They're seriously missing a trick and according to the chap I spoke to - they have no plans to roll out to anymore of Bristol! Numpties.

*Her*

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By *obletonMan  over a year ago

A Home Among The Woodland Creatures

[Removed by poster at 11/01/11 19:55:46]

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Used to be telewest here and is now Virgin. My experience of them is that they are utter shite! Two weeks to switch on an existing phone line (after a house move) Engineers not turning up when they were supposed to. Next time turning up 3 hours late and sneaking up the drive (or trying to) to pop a "sorry we missed you" card through the letter box that was timed 5 hours earlier. Wanting to rip up a driveway that cost me £2k refusing to return a £25 deposit and shocking manners on the 'help desk' line.

BT line. Out the next day. Ran new copper from our house to the exchange as all lines had been used. Not failed in 10 years.

Sky (using BT line) £22 p/m for basic TV and unlimited BB. Never complained once about download amounts (unlike my last provider (a sister company to plusnet)). No lag on the line so can watch iplayer even at peak times. BB has not 'dropped' once that I have detected since we have had sky BB.

Only downside is that we have had 2 sky boxes stop working in about 8 years but just bought 2nd hand ones off ebay for an average of £12 each.

Virgin might offer faster connections but everything is is complete pants and not worth the time.

See now i have never had any problems with Telewest/Virgin, in fact they often go out of their way to provide a good service, and i dont have to do anything other than ring them to get that

hope your ok kitten xxx"

Am good thanks sexy xx

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By *iamondladyWoman  over a year ago

titsville


"Does anyone know if anyone is going to provide a kind of wireless service for sky or virgin. I live with 3 teenage children all with different taste. I would like the option of having sky or similar supplied to several/ 5 rooms remotely so I don't have cables going all over the house.

You can buy a router and connect wireless, if there pc/lappy don't have wireless built in then you can buy a usb wireless dongle.

Virgin and sky give a router for free when you sign up if you don't have the real small package.

Tony"

I mean I want Sky TV going to 5 different TV's in different rooms without cabling and having to watch the same thing. Have they invented this option yet?

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

we have sky multiroom and hd, not cheep but never had a problem with it and never had a bad picture whatever the weather, have talk talk for phone and internet due to the cheap overseas calls thats been good to, never had virgin so cant coment on that

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By *arambarMan  over a year ago

swindon

I love Vermin Media's cable for broadband - I ditched them for telly and phone when they (when they were still NTL) messed me around one time too many, but I couldn't bear the thought of having ADSL as where I live is miles from the exchange.

I ought to go back to VM really cause I know it'd be cheaper to get all 3 services from one provider. At the moment, I'm paying over the odds out of some stupid principle I thought I was making. Stupid, ain't I..?!?

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

We used to be on NTL then stayed for the Virgin takeover.

We have the T.V,broadband and land-line package deal.

It costs us £52 per month max, no matter how many land-line calls we make.

Plus U.F.C ppv is included, not extra, which is nice as were fans.

Oh, and we don't have to have one of those ugly bloody dishes sticking out of the house side!

XXXX

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By *athnBobCouple  over a year ago

sandwell


" i cannot have Sky internet as the connection in the street is too far from my house "

errrr it uses your regular phone line!


"One thing to remember is that the Sky "helpline" is charged at a per minute rate,... much to my parents chagrin!

"

There is a free phone line as well but you do need to search for it on the net

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


" i cannot have Sky internet as the connection in the street is too far from my house

errrr it uses your regular phone line!

One thing to remember is that the Sky "helpline" is charged at a per minute rate,... much to my parents chagrin!

There is a free phone line as well but you do need to search for it on the net"

Thanks but there is no BT connection in the house, only telewest, thats what was here when i moved in, because i already had telewest in the old house, i just transferred the account. I investigated costings but that is what the man said when he looked at my post code, the connection in the ground for Sky internet was too far from the house, so would have made it too expensive to have triple package so left them and have it with telewest instead

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

[Removed by poster at 12/01/11 08:53:16]

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


" i cannot have Sky internet as the connection in the street is too far from my house

errrr it uses your regular phone line!

One thing to remember is that the Sky "helpline" is charged at a per minute rate,... much to my parents chagrin!

There is a free phone line as well but you do need to search for it on the net

Thanks but there is no BT connection in the house, only telewest, thats what was here when i moved in, because i already had telewest in the old house, i just transferred the account. I investigated costings but that is what the man said when he looked at my post code, the connection in the ground for Sky internet was too far from the house, so would have made it too expensive to have triple package so left them and have it with telewest instead "

It's far easier - and less technical - to inform an inquiring public that they are too far from the exchange to be connected to any of the BT-based broadband providers, instead of telling them the full truth, which is very technical and would go straight over most people's heads.

So here's the truth about what they mean when they say you're too far away.

Before cabe tv companies begun springing up all over the country BT enjoyed a monopoly on telephone services in the UK. In 1999 BT were ordered to unbundle the local loop (the connection between you and your nearest exchange). LLU meant that other service providers could piggy back on BT's network (which was partially taxpayer funded when it was built), and provide ADSL services. It was intended that 1m connections would be unbundled by 2006 but only 20% of this target had been achieved by then.

What does this mean in layman's terms?

The connection from your house goes via a cabinet (or series of cabinets) in the street and then onto the exchange where it connects to an MDF (main distribution frame), from there it crosses over to an HDF (handover distribution frame) which makes the copper pairs available to the Co-location service provider (Aol, TalkTalk etc), who have their own frame usually sited within a BT exchange.

With me so far? Good.

If the service provider you are trying to establish an account with doesn't have a Co-Lo frame at your local exchange then it cannot provide a service to you as it cannot run a pair of wires from the next nearest point that it DOES have a Co-Lo frame. It's way too expensive and totally unfeasible for a business to do that.

However, there is another scenario that could prevent them providing you with service:

The cabinets you see in the street are sited where they are specifically to reach a certain number of houses and they do not encompass 100% of the homes within their reach. They work on a % of take up. For example, 1 cabinet can connect 240 homes but it's reach is usually for a block of 500 homes. If all those 240 lines are taken and you ask for a connection, hey presto, you can't have one because there aren't any left. BT would have to build a new cabinet (with it's accompanying fibre connection back to the exchange), and again, that's too expensive to do.

They can't run an ADSL line to your house from the next nearest cabinet that does have spare capacity as the signal on an ADSL line drops the longer the cable run to your home is until it reaches a certain length and it drops out entirely.

Hope that all makes sense

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

Im a virgin man, only trouble is when you have a problem, if you dont push the right buttons on the phone, you end up speaking to the call centre in India!!!! Saying that, they talk better English than the Geordies, lol......

Hey do people know you can watch skysports free on tinternet?!?!

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


" i cannot have Sky internet as the connection in the street is too far from my house

errrr it uses your regular phone line!

One thing to remember is that the Sky "helpline" is charged at a per minute rate,... much to my parents chagrin!

There is a free phone line as well but you do need to search for it on the net

Thanks but there is no BT connection in the house, only telewest, thats what was here when i moved in, because i already had telewest in the old house, i just transferred the account. I investigated costings but that is what the man said when he looked at my post code, the connection in the ground for Sky internet was too far from the house, so would have made it too expensive to have triple package so left them and have it with telewest instead

It's far easier - and less technical - to inform an inquiring public that they are too far from the exchange to be connected to any of the BT-based broadband providers, instead of telling them the full truth, which is very technical and would go straight over most people's heads.

So here's the truth about what they mean when they say you're too far away.

Before cabe tv companies begun springing up all over the country BT enjoyed a monopoly on telephone services in the UK. In 1999 BT were ordered to unbundle the local loop (the connection between you and your nearest exchange). LLU meant that other service providers could piggy back on BT's network (which was partially taxpayer funded when it was built), and provide ADSL services. It was intended that 1m connections would be unbundled by 2006 but only 20% of this target had been achieved by then.

What does this mean in layman's terms?

The connection from your house goes via a cabinet (or series of cabinets) in the street and then onto the exchange where it connects to an MDF (main distribution frame), from there it crosses over to an HDF (handover distribution frame) which makes the copper pairs available to the Co-location service provider (Aol, TalkTalk etc), who have their own frame usually sited within a BT exchange.

With me so far? Good.

If the service provider you are trying to establish an account with doesn't have a Co-Lo frame at your local exchange then it cannot provide a service to you as it cannot run a pair of wires from the next nearest point that it DOES have a Co-Lo frame. It's way too expensive and totally unfeasible for a business to do that.

However, there is another scenario that could prevent them providing you with service:

The cabinets you see in the street are sited where they are specifically to reach a certain number of houses and they do not encompass 100% of the homes within their reach. They work on a % of take up. For example, 1 cabinet can connect 240 homes but it's reach is usually for a block of 500 homes. If all those 240 lines are taken and you ask for a connection, hey presto, you can't have one because there aren't any left. BT would have to build a new cabinet (with it's accompanying fibre connection back to the exchange), and again, that's too expensive to do.

They can't run an ADSL line to your house from the next nearest cabinet that does have spare capacity as the signal on an ADSL line drops the longer the cable run to your home is until it reaches a certain length and it drops out entirely.

Hope that all makes sense "

Yes ..... I think and thanks

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


"Virgin Box is a bit slow (Scientific Atlantic), but newer ones are supposed to be better and I hope have more HD recording space. Current box only allows around 20 hours of HD recording!

Catchup and TV on demand are quite useful.

As explained above, the new TiVo boxes have a 1 terrabyte hard drive in them which will store up to 500 hours of programmes. It also has a backwards search facility that allows you to search back up to one week to get programmes you missed. Very handy."

Ohhh how can I get one of those!


"Im a virgin man, only trouble is when you have a problem, if you dont push the right buttons on the phone, you end up speaking to the call centre in India!!!! Saying that, they talk better English than the Geordies, lol......

Hey do people know you can watch skysports free on tinternet?!?! "

From what I gather it is a time of day thing. During the day the UK call centre is used, at night it is off to India.- Well that is what the guy in the UK call centre told me!

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago


" Hope that all makes sense "

Perfect sense ..

When I 1st moved into the house that I'm in now, BT refused to give me broadband on account of a lack of lines. Originally my line had a pair sharing device at the pole, but there was another pole an equal distance from me at the other end of the street. I enquired and was told that there were spare pairs on that pole, however BT wouldn't move it on account of the fact that I already had a satisfactory working line. "Oh it'd mean installing a new drop wire, bla bla bla bla was what they said".

My comment to them was something along the lines of 'fuck you, you bunch of lazy bastards get the new drop wire installed, and give me an exclusive exchange line and stick your pair sharing device where the sun don't shine'

I got the new line in the end but never did find out where they put their pair sharing device although I did see a BT lineman walking a bit peculiar a few days later.

I now have broadband at the super lightning fast speed of 2 Megs ....

Wow !

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By (user no longer on site)  over a year ago

The funniest part though was when the BT guy came to do the job, he was a sour son of a bitch, you know the sort ? Like he'd last a tenner and found a penny ..

In any case he installed the new drop wire and attached his tone generator onto the end of my line then told me he was off to the cabinet then to the exchange to swap the pair over.

So I gave him enough time to get to the cabinet and do his thing then when I thought he would be almost at the exchange I disconnected his tone - I thought to myself, "Find the line now you miserable twat"

When I saw his van come back down the lane I connected his tone back up again - by this time he wasn't a happy man, came in, frigged around, had to go back to the cabinet again, then to the exchange ....

This time I left his tone connected

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By *ucati1098Couple  over a year ago

nottingham


"Im a virgin man, only trouble is when you have a problem, if you dont push the right buttons on the phone, you end up speaking to the call centre in India!!!! Saying that, they talk better English than the Geordies, lol......

Hey do people know you can watch skysports free on tinternet?!?! "

Way round that is just press 173 get through every time. xx

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By *ucati1098Couple  over a year ago

nottingham


"Virgin Box is a bit slow (Scientific Atlantic), but newer ones are supposed to be better and I hope have more HD recording space. Current box only allows around 20 hours of HD recording!

Catchup and TV on demand are quite useful.

As explained above, the new TiVo boxes have a 1 terrabyte hard drive in them which will store up to 500 hours of programmes. It also has a backwards search facility that allows you to search back up to one week to get programmes you missed. Very handy.

Ohhh how can I get one of those!

Im a virgin man, only trouble is when you have a problem, if you dont push the right buttons on the phone, you end up speaking to the call centre in India!!!! Saying that, they talk better English than the Geordies, lol......

Hey do people know you can watch skysports free on tinternet?!?!

From what I gather it is a time of day thing. During the day the UK call centre is used, at night it is off to India.- Well that is what the guy in the UK call centre told me!

"

Virgin are open 8-8 daily and 8-6 sat just dial 173 get straight through every time. xx

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