Virgin Media for cable and broadband? Or just broadband and Freeview?

What are the best options for TV and broadband? I'm looking at Virgin and am kind of annoyed at the packaging of a landline with the other two. Another option, I guess, is to just get broadband from Virgin and use a Freeview box. I'll be in South London, not far from the Crystal Towers, as I understand it, so maybe the signal will be strong... Not sure. Any experiences to report? Thanks!

I've considered getting broadband without a phone line before and also not getting the TV channels, but to be honest, I've found the bundles/collections with TV, phone and broadband to be the best value... and much cheaper than in the US.

Just going with Virgin's most basic package of landline, weekend call package, cable TV and 30MB broadband, it's on offer for £25.99 per month for 6 months, then £35.99 after that.

If I just got the cheapest broadband with a phone line but no TV, it would be £23.49 for the first 6 months, then £31.49 after that. So for only a couple of pounds more per month, I could get over 60 TV channels, 10 HD channels, a 500GB TIVO box and free Netflix for 6 months.

If I just got the cheapest broadband with no phone line, it would be £20 a month for the first 3 months, then £25 a month after that. So, for an extra £5-10 a month, I could get the phone line, free weekend calls, digital TV, TIVO, HD channels, Netflix, as well as the broadband.

So, personally, I'd rather pay the £25.99/£35.99 per month and get it all, rather than just pay £20/£25 for only broadband (even if I barely use the phone line ).

I don't believe its possible to get broadband without landline rental in the UK. Not sure if this is for technical reasons but all broadband deals stipulated land line rental. We don't even have a phone so its an expensive deal!

I don't believe its possible to get broadband without landline rental in the UK. Not sure if this is for technical reasons but all broadband deals stipulated land line rental. We don't even have a phone so its an expensive deal!

It is possible.

In my reply above, I quoted Virgin Media's prices for broadband without a phone line: £20 a month for the first 3 months and then £25 a month after that.
See: http://store.virginmedia.com/broadband.html (bottom option)

We've got PlusNet for broadband (Virgin doesn't offer service in our area) at about 12 quid per month, and Freeview for TV, and we're happy with both.  We had Sky for everything when we first moved over, and it wasn't worth what we were paying (lots of channels, but not many we actually wanted to watch).

As I understand the land line part of it, Virgin's signals come over cable, so that's why you don't need a phone with them.  Everyone else provides broadband over phone lines, so you do need a phone.  We've got a land line, but don't use it.

Hope you have better luck with freeview.  Our bedroom tv is freeview and it has stopped working completely twice since i moved here in September.  It seems everytime a cell tower goes up in our area our signal dies.  Waiting for a guy to come fix it......they frequently put flyers in our letterbox.

We've had no problem with Freeview; if I ever decide to pay for TV and switch broadband providers I would likely go with Sky.

We ended up with BT because DH got to the UK 1st, and set up the landline. We added the broadband later. What I don't like is the phone commitment is 12 months, but the BB is 18 months, which makes it difficult to switch. I haven't compared prices lately, but I do think other providers are cheaper. Since it's still way cheaper than we paid in the US, I'm not unhappy, and the internet speed is really fast.

There are spots in the UK that you don't need the landline, but much of the country will require a landline to get access to broadband. Before you make decisions, check to make sure they are available in your area. In my part of the country (and I'm not living in a remote place) it is impossible to get broadband without a line rental, and you need a satellite for cable, so Sky or freesat are really our only TV options.

So here's another question. Virgin has a pretty long contract if you do a full package (like 18 months or something.) Any idea what happens if we move before that runs out? Do we take it with us? Or is that a big problem? We'd probably be moving within Virgin territory since it would still be somewhere in zones 1 or 2 in all likelihood. Thanks

It would just move with you and the contract would just continue, it wouldn't usually reset the clock or anything. If you moved to an area without Virgin coverage, you may have to pay a cancellation fee.

Thanks, that sounds pretty good. I'll double check of course but I'm encouraged.

It would just move with you and the contract would just continue, it wouldn't usually reset the clock or anything. If you moved to an area without Virgin coverage, you may have to pay a cancellation fee.

Yeah, as long you're able to have Virgin services at the place you're moving to, you can just take the service and the contract with you.

However, if you are unable to have the service at your new place, you would have to pay cancellation fees.

An example of this is when I moved from a flat share in one city to a room above someone's garage in another city. I had Virgin Media services in my flat share, but I couldn't transfer them to my new place, because I was living in someone else's house and they already had their TV and broadband services set up.

I was told that to cancel my contract, I would have to pay a cancellation fee and also the remaining balance of the contract... it had a few months left on it, so they wanted to charge me about £150 just to cancel the service!

I didn't want to have to do this, so then they offered me an alternative: I could purchase a mobile broadband 1GB dongle for £25 and then sign up to at least 2 months of the dongle contract at £8 a month, and they would waive the cancellation and end of contract costs. I decided to do this instead of paying all the extra money just to cancel outright, then I cancelled the dongle contract after 4 months... so in total, it cost me £57 rather than £150... and I got the dongle internet allowance as well, which came in handy when I moved again and didn't have internet set up yet.

Cheapest deal in the UK at the moment for broadband/phone with no TV is TalkTalk.

You get unlimited downloads at speeds of up to 16MB for £2.50/mth.

Line rental. It's usually £15.40/month, but later in the sign-up process you can opt to pay £126 for a year upfront, equivalent to £10.50/month.

So that's £13 per month, all you need.

TalkTalk also has quite possibly the worst reputation in the UK for customer service and quality of broadband, so that's worth considering as well.

TalkTalk also has quite possibly the worst reputation in the UK for customer service and quality of broadband, so that's worth considering as well.

They do, but they're also one of the largest and although they used to be awful, their actual product is ok these days.  Support isn't the best though...