BT Broadband/Vision and Virgin Media Compared
When I first moved, I went the Virgin Media route and subscribed to Sky Sports 1 and 2.
A couple of months ago, I threw the cable out, as Virgin Media couldn’t give me a working landline telephone.
I now have BT broadband, with which I use BT Vision to get the same Sky channels.
I don’t regret the changes one bit.
- BT is much cheaper. Not sure totally how much, as I haven’t had a bill with all my landline calls. It looks like it might be about £70 compared to £130 for Virgin.
- The BT service appears to be more reliable. Virgin cable seemed to go up and down like a whore’s drawers. Perhaps this was partly due to the state of their boxes in the street, which had had the doors removed.
- Since I signed up with BT, I think I’ve only had one spam e-mail or leaflet in the mail. Virgin still keep sending them, although in the last week, they seem to have stopped. Perhaps, they’ve got the message.
- With BT, if I lose broadband, I still have the TV without Sky through Freeview.
- I know this is personal taste, but I think the BT website is easier to use. The login is certainly better.
So bye-bye Virgin and never may you grace my door again.
I suspect though it will be all irrevelant in the future, who your broadband supplier is. You’ll get all your TV channels other than the free-to-air ones on subscription of some sort through it.
I suspect too, that you’ll be able to subscribe to advert-free versions of things like Sky. At a premium of course.
BT Vision
I have just installed BT Vision.
It seems to work well and I’m just watching the cricket on Sky Sports 1.
Technically, I like the concept of watching most things free through Freeview and getting other things from broadband or by unlocking channels on Freeview. I think it is a concept that will grow like Topsy.
I know too, that I’m paying a lot less than I did for a poor service from Virgin.
A few points of comparison.
- I have Freeview television in my bedroom, so now I have the same channel numbers in my living room and my bedroom. I didn’t with Sky or with Virgin.
- Picture quality is good, but I have just fitted a new aerial.
- All the features like stop the picture and then contunue are there. Virgin may have had them, but I never found out how to use them. The designer of the Virgin box, was probably a games-optimised person, who didn’t understand logical system design for those who don’t and never will play games.
I’ll add to this list as time goes on. But I’m not regretting moving away from Virgin.
After Ruining Horse Racing and Cricket Coverage, are Channel 4 Now Doing It With Athletics?
I have not watched any of Channel 4’s coverage of the World Athletics Championships in Daegu, and it seems according to this article in the Guardian, I’m not missing much, by listening on the radio.
They try too hard to make sure they get the advertisers, that they ruin the product. They did this with horseracing and now it has been dumbed down so much I don’t watch.
In the end, there is only two ways to show quality sport; either-free-to-air without advertising or by subscription. I know Sky has adverts and they can be irritating, but their presenters are generally professional. Comparing Sky coverage of the Champions League, with that of ITV, is much more than a matter of chalk and cheese.
We won’t have to worry for long though, as events like the Athletics World Championship will be available on a quality basis over the Internet in the near future for a fee. And hopefully for a fee that has two levels; one with advertising and one without.
Virgin Find a New Way to Deliver Phone Calls
I’ve just had some junk mail from Virgin Media, which of course I opted out of, which is entitled “Excitement? We’ve got it by the bucketful.”
It would be good if they could get me a working landline that I pay for.
I’ve actually got a yellow bucket in the garage. If I put it outside the front door, will they put my messages in it.
As a company they seem to go out of their way to annoy people who might want to use their service. If I was to rate, Sky, BT and O2, all of whom I’ve used without trouble for many years, I would give them perhaps 8 out of 10. But Virgin would be up there with the old Eurovision joke of nil points. And that would be generous!
Bye-Bye Virgin
I’ve now been without my landline for a couple of weeks now. Although, I didn’t realise it for some days, as I was away and also because most of my friends phone me on my mobile number.
So on Friday, I did what I should have done when I moved in; I signed up with BT.
Today after a very long phone call, I cancelled Virgin. I did eventually get someone sensible, but as I had to ring on my mobile and I phoned them for perhaps twenty minutes, I suspect it wasn’t cheap.
It did however cost me over seventy pounds to get rid of them.
Hackney council today wrote to me saying that I could get rid of five heavy items a year by just giving them a call. If disposing of Virgin and their useless service were so easy.
Incidentally, all of their cabinets round here have had their doors stolen.
A Typical Virgin Cabinet in Hackney
In my experience, electrical equipment doesn’t like working in exposed conditions.
I shall now be using BT for phone and broadband, Freeview for television and the pub for watching football on Sky.
Formula One Goes Partly to Sky
I’m actually not that bothered as I can get Sky on my cable. Especially, as they have said they are not going to have adverts during the racing. At least it didn’t go to ITV, who have so many adverts they can turn the best television into gibberrish.
My problem with Sky, is that I can’t get it over broadband, unless I sign up to their broadband.
I only want Sky Sports, so would be happy to pay on a pay-per-view basis over the Internet.
As to Virgin Cable, it’s crap, as the box is very unuser friendly and the channels are laid out illogically Since I’ve moved, I haven’t recorded anything at all, but I have watch a few programs through iPlayer on my computer.
How Do You Banish Virgins?
Virgin Media is an frustrating company in that it designs so many things almost to annoy.
I’m using my Samsung Network at a friend’s house and some of the connection software for my home broadband keeps opening Virgin Broadband windows in Internet Explorer. Delete them and they reappear and often seem to replace something I want.
I do wish I’d installed Sky and used BT for my phone lines.
This is not to forget their rather inferior TV system, which is not up to the standard of Sky Plus and the fact that they still haven’t transferred my number from Suffolk.
I’ve just solved the Virgin windows by deleting the Virgin Media hub from this computer. So don’t install it, is my advice. I haven’t installed it on my laptop and that works fine, so I think it’s one of those unnecessary pieces of software companies like you to install, so they can track what you are doing or lead you to spend more money with them.
What I Had Intended to Do Yesterday!
In an earlier post, I said how disappointed I was with Coventry yesterday.
To be fair to the city, I think I should say what I had intended to do and talk about some of it.
When I got my fixture list, I saw that Ipswich Town were playing there on New Year’s Day, so I made a mental note that if I had moved to London by then, I would go and visit the cathedral, as it is a mystical place, where I could contemplate the recent deaths of my wife and son. I thought too, that I might sample a good curry before the match and perhaps visit an art gallery or a museum.
The day had started well, with just the minor distraction of being unable to buy my copy of The Times at Euston, after a twenty minute bus ride from the Balls Pond Road, just round the corner from where I live.
The train left London dead on time and all the way to Coventry, I had two seats side-by-side in Standard Class all to myself. My only complaint would be that the seat back tables are a bit difficult for me to balance a magazine on, but then that isn’t serious and as I was paying just over £10 each way, it was good value and comfortable.
Arriving in Coventry, we were still on time and as I don’t know the city well, I decided to look for a map or some form of tourist information. Perhaps, I should have gone elsewhere or perhaps come on a different day, as I couldn’t fmind anything. I almost felt that I’d come to Coventry on the wrong day for the match, as the place was totally closed. Even the WH Smith’s was closed, so I couldn’t get my paper.
outside of the station, the forecourt was equally dead with no buses or taxis. Eventually, I found a helpful Coventrian, who pointed me to a rather scruffy underpass and bridge that led towards the city centre. It wasn’t the best marked walk, but I got there passing perhaps half-a-dozen people on the way. Comparing this to the busy Upper Street, the bus had taken me through on the way to Euston, just reinforced my fears that Coventry was in fact shut and I should make my way home as soon as possible to watch other football on Sky.
There was few people about, as I walked up past a few smark banks and endless dreary stores, which seemed to be mainly amusement arcades or pawn shops.
The cathedral is surrounded by a few mediaeval steeets and I did find a Pizza Express, where I decided to have a salad Nicoise for lunch, as time was now running short and I hadn’t seen an Indian restaurant, let alone one that looked to be decent. The salad was acceptable, but the waitress got it delivered with bread sticks, so I sent it back. Although she talked and behaved like one of Catherine Tate‘s creations, I put it all down to bad training, so it wasn’t her fault.
I then walked to the cathedrals and like the rest of the city they were deserted. Perhaps, not a bad thing really, as I was able to pay my respects to both my wife and son and those who died in Coventry’s Blitz in almost absolute silence.
After the visit I walked towards the bus station and found a Sainsburys, where I was finally able to buy my copy of The Times. But was Sainsbury’s busy? No! Of course not. Perhaps, evrybody was sleeping off last night’s excesses, but it was now after two.
It was now getting to be like one of those series, where everybody has died from some sort of bug and there is no-one left. Now that I’d got the paper, I actually checked that Ipswich were playing in the city, but couldn’t find the fixture list.
The bus station was totally deserted except for a few Coventry fans looking for transport to the Ricoh. But there was none, until two kind Coventry fans suggested they give me a lift.
Surely, Coventry City shouldn’t have been selling tickets, as they did to these fans, without making sure that the transport was in place.
Solving the Problem of Watching Sky or ITV Pictures and Getting Radio 5 Sound
As you may know from this blog, I’m allergic to two things; gluten and adverts. I don’t like having to continually switch whilst watching sport on Sky or ITV to BBC Radio 5, to avoid the annoying adverts and get a continuous commentary. In many cases too, the ITV coverage is not up to scratch and vital parts like goals are missed. To be fair to Sky, there’s nothing wrong with their coverage in general, it’s just the adverts, often for products that contain gluten. So they are a double irritant.
Virgin cable gets around this problem in some ways, because it has a Back button, so you can constantly use it to flip between, your preferred video and audio channels.
For Christmas I was given a pair of wireless headphones by Sennheiser, that plug into the headphone socket of a television or radio and give a good sound quality within range.
So I have plugged them into my Roberts DAB radio for good Radio 5 sound and just put the television on the corresponding video channel.
There are some other advantages.
- I can get good commentary all over my house and even in the road outside.
- The range also solves the tea and toilet break problems, as never do I have to miss any of the action. This works well with sport, but you’d probably need to pause the television for a break, whilst watching a serious drama.
- I’d also be interested to know to, how serious music lovers would find the quality of the sound through the headphones.
- I now adjust the volume on the headphones, so that if say I was watching something very loud, then I’m the only one gets the loud noise.
- Obviously, if you are watching with someone else, you just unplug the headphones and watch normally.
It strikes me that various families would find different ways to use one or more of these devices to avoid problems amongst themselves or with the neighbours.
To be fair, I know that the headphones are a good deal cheaper, than the cost of using a solicitor to fight an ASBO caused by a loud television. And not everybody likes Abba!
But whatever, they made a very good Christmas present for me!
A Most Annoying Advert
I can’t see the television that well in 2-D because of my eye-sight, so one of the most annoying adverts is one for LG proclaiming the virtues of watching 3-D television with someone else which also grates.
So LG has just joined my list of companies whose products I don’t buy!
Is that what advertising is supposed to do? Annoy your possible customers!
When is someone going to produce advert free television? I suppose it’s called the BBC, but what I want to see at the moment is on Sky!
The Anonymous Widower 