UKC

I'm a bit behind the curve on what's available nowadays in terms of TV and providers etc. so thought I'd harvest the knowledge base that is UKC.

At the minute we have a Virgin package of broadband, TV and telephone (which we never use). It's cable and costs about £65 a month (Full House). 

The biggest users are probably the two kids (8 & 6) - cartoons etc. We usually snatch an hour in the evening but it's invariably what I'd call the main channels - BBC, ITV etc (even though we have 100's of channels - most of it unwatchable).

Would I be right in thinking that if we cut our package down to broadband only, had a TV that had Freeview, and bought a one off box/stick e.g. NowTV, we'd have most things covered? The choice seems (purposely) bewildering! This would nearly half what we're paying now.

With a smart TV and apps we'd still get YouTube, iPlayer etc, correct? What setups do people have and what sort of monthly prices? 

Thanks for any input. 

The best thing to do with Virgin is haggle. If you are coming to the end of your contract, threaten to leave and they should give you a good deal.

To be honest its annoying having to do this every year but there is no competition to what Virgin Broadband offers an they know it.

As for dropping the phone and TV bundle, it works out the same.

Haggle and threaten to leave and you should get some reductions, possibly as much as 50%.

Thanks.

We're up for contract in March which is why my mind is on it. And yes Virgin do like to make you work.

Their broadband only is £35 a month and unless I'm missing something, a Now stick or something similar, to have options for the extra kids stuff (£3.99 a month for a Now kids package), seems to make sense.

I guess that gives me figures to compare anything Virgin can offer. 

We're paying £22 per month with Vodafone for broadband and phone - line rental is free you can buy call packages but we just use our mobiles and keep the landline for incoming calls as a couple of elderly relatives point blank refuse to call mobiles. We were with virgin but got tired having to haggle once a year.

I'd not cast the net to cutting away from Virgin completely so thanks for sewing that seed. What TV options do you use? 

we have amazon prime, netflix and youtube premium (no sky/bt/virgin though) these services give us the programs we want advert free and allow us to watch on the move and away from the internet by downloading stuff to phones/tablets. occasionally there’ll be a football match on that i want to watch and don’t want to go to the pub to watch it, then i’ll buy a 24 hour sky sports pass via now tv (£8) 

my mum lives with us and she’s an ex-virgin (!!) and wants to record stuff like she used to do on her tivo box. We got her a Freeview recorded box that does all the series link and stuff tivo did. £130 one off price rather than ‘renting’ a tivo off virgin.

It works for us but everyone is different.

I have sky broadband, with the Q-box, worked into that somehow is netflix and amazon prime for around 50 squid a month.

Ive no idea if that's cheap or not.

The broadband had been rubbish until recently with no help from sky, i read somewhere to put the router in the loft, so i did and it works brilliantly now!

TV wise we just use Freeview channels or watch stuff on iplayer, more4 etc. We also have a chromecast so can stream iplayer, more4, youtube, vimeo, from computer/phone etc.  We don't have any pay tv channels but will occasionally pay for a film or something and just use the chromecast or connect the computer directly to the hdmi socket.