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Virgin Media vs Sky

Our Broadband Expert says...

Dear Phillip, Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) and Sky Broadband (www.Sky.com) are the UK’s two biggest triple play providers, with a range of broadband packages, home phone deals and digital TV services. They both offer a similar range of products so choosing between the two can be difficult.

Virgin Broadband vs Sky Broadband

When it comes to broadband download speeds, Virgin Media takes the top spot. As well as offering one of the UK’s fastest broadband packages at speeds of 100Mb broadband, the cable provider also offers two other packages at speeds of up to 10Mb and up to 30Mb. All packages come with “unlimited broadband” downloads, subject to a fair usage policy.

On top of offering the fastest headline speeds, broadband speed research by Ofcom in May 2011 showed that Virgin Media was also the fastest actual performer, with average download speeds of 9.3Mb to 9.6Mb on its 'up to' 10Mb package and average speeds of 30.7Mb to 31.3Mb on its 30Mb package. If you want to find out speeds available in your area you can speak to Virgin Media on 0808 189 0514.

Sky's 20Mb connection averaged 6.6Mb to 8.0Mb, behind ADSL copper wire rival O2 Broadband (www.O2.co.uk) and BT (www.BT.com).

Sky is the UK’s fastest growing broadband provider, and offers one of the UK's only truly unlimited broadband packages - its Unlimited Broadband tariff has no fair usage policy attached.

Its other package - Everyday Lite - comes free with a Sky TV subscription and offers a 2GB usage allowance - perfect for occasional users as it is essentially a “free broadband” add-on for Sky TV users.

Virgin Phone vs Sky Talk

Both Virgin Media and Sky offer reasonably priced home phone packages, however, calls abroad, to mobiles or outside of your call package can be expensive, so make sure you look at the kind of calls you make, and how long you spend on your home phone before signing up.

Because it’s a cable provider, Virgin Media customers don’t have to take one of its home phone lines in order to get Virgin Media broadband. However, if you want a triple play bundle, then you could even get discounts on your broadband package by taking Virgin Media’s £13.90 a month line rental.

Line rental alone also gives you free weekend UK landline calls, or you can add one of the ISP’s call packages to give you inclusive evening and weekend or anytime UK landline calls.

Sky offers just two different call packages; Sky Talk Freetime is free to Sky TV customers and comes with inclusive evening and weekend calls, while Sky Talk Unlimited comes with inclusive anytime UK landline calls and unlimited calls to 20 international destinations. Customers can choose to keep their BT Broadband (www.BT.com) landline for £14.60 a month, or switch their line rental to Sky for £12.25 a month. Customers can benefit from a reduced line rental charge if they pay for 12 months of line rental upfront.

While call costs for both Virgin Media and Sky are more costly than standalone home phone providers, Sky is the cheaper of the two, though you can buy add-ons for your Virgin Media call package to reduce the cost of international calls.

Compare out-of-bundle call rates in the table below:

Sky TV vs Virgin TV

Virgin Media and Sky’s digital TV battle is really hotting up, with Virgin Media adding new HD channels and free catch-up in a bid to take over where Sky was once the clear frontrunner. Both providers offer a huge range of digital TV packages, with options to suit all tastes and budgets.

Virgin Media offers three digital TV packages offering 75, 115 and 175 channels - all of which that can be bundled with its other services.

It also offers free catch-ups straight to your TV from the BBC iPlayer, Channel 4 and ITV, as well as a wide selection of TV on Demand and a growing choice of HD TV channels that now include BBC HD, MTV HD and National Geographic HD. The V+ and V+HD boxes also work as digital TV recorders, allowing you to record, pause and rewind “live” TV, recoding two channels at the same time as watching another, with up to 80 hours worth of programming.

Alternatively you can get a Virgin Media TiVo box which has HD as standard, lets you pause, rewind and record live TV and has either 500GB or 1TB of storage - that's 100 hours of HD recording time or 500 hours of standard TV. Plus, you can record three shows while watching one you recorded earlier.

Sky offers a huge range of digital TV channels, with a choice of six pick-and-mix “entertainment packs” as well as Sky Sports and Sky Movies add-ons.

Although it charges an additional monthly fee for its HD programmes, unlike Virgin Media, Sky HD currently offers far more choice, with over 50 HD channels. As well as allowing you to pause and rewind “live” TV, its Sky+ box allows you to record up to 185 hours of TV, while the Sky+HD 1TB box has four times the storage. Sky also offers its own Sky Anytime catch-up service, with a selection of missed programmes just for Sky+ and Sky+HD customers.

Compare all bundle providers

If you still can’t decide which provider to choose, then compare broadband providers to find a bundle package that’s right for you.

NB Best buy tables (orange background) are always current.

Examples in the text of the article (white background) are correct at time of publication.

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If you have a general switching or provider query please email us at OurExpert@broadbandchoices.co.uk

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