[jonathannewbrook]

I'm currently with Virgin Media for my telephone and broadband. I am also with Sky for my television. Overall I'm paying out about £94 a month for them all. Is this a lot?

I've been looking into Sky's 3in1 package but it has a variety of them. I don't understand what it means by 'Up to 2mb download speed' and 'Up to 8mb download speed', etc. What's a good ?mb speed to have?

Which do you think is best to go with? As Virgin Media also does the 3in1 package and other companys do too.


I hope this is in the correct part of the forum, if not, please move it to its correct place. Thanks! :)

[Dave Hybrid]

Virgin do cable, sky and all the others do ADSL.

ADSL is normally upto 8mb but the most people generally get is 2-3mb as the telephone lines can't handle any more.

Sky are also a pretty bad BB company, nothing but problems.

Cable is true high speed future proof broadband but Virgin do crap TV channels so you already on the best setup.

[jonathannewbrook]

Originally Posted by Dave Hybrid Virgin do cable, sky and all the others do ADSL. ADSL is normally upto 8mb but the most people generally get is 2-3mb as the telephone lines can't handle any more. Sky are also a pretty bad BB company, nothing but problems. Cable is true high speed future proof broadband but Virgin do crap TV channels so you already on the best setup.

So could Sky not use the cable I have already and provide a faster speed?

And what about the price I'm paying. Would you say that's cheap/good/expensive?

Thanks for helping by the way. Much appreciated. :)

[Dave Hybrid]

Only Virgin do cable broadband.

You can get sky TV cheaper if you call every few months and threaten to cancel it.

[Gazmondo]

I'm on the Virgin XL package, the cable internet is second-to-none, no problems and really fast reliable connections, 24/7.

The TV however has much to be desired, it's pretty poor to be honest, about 1/2 as many channels as SKY, including some big ones which I used to watch. Fair enough Virgin have a few that sky don't have, but they are either cheap knock-offs or otherwise useless.

[jonathannewbrook]

Originally Posted by Dave Hybrid Only Virgin do cable broadband. You can get sky TV cheaper if you call every few months and threaten to cancel it.

Yeah, my older sister does that. lololol.

Originally Posted by Gazmondo I'm on the Virgin XL package, the cable internet is second-to-none, no problems and really fast reliable connections, 24/7. The TV however has much to be desired, it's pretty poor to be honest, about 1/2 as many channels as SKY, including some big ones which I used to watch. Fair enough Virgin have a few that sky don't have, but they are either cheap knock-offs or otherwise useless.

If you don't mind me asking, how much do you pay per month? & does this include your telephone?

Shame LOST is on SkyOne and no other channels. :(
I really like that show.

[Cew27]

also fir one pc on the net you dont need more than 2 meg
for 2 no more than 4 and for more than two and or a games console 5+

[Dave Hybrid]

Originally Posted by Cew27 also fir one pc on the net you dont need more than 2 meg for 2 no more than 4 and for more than two and or a games console 5+

Well that depends on usage not how many PC's you have.

[Cew27]

but in general

[Desertfish]

There is no easy answer to the questions you’re asking. That’s because the broadband industry is slowly and gradually getting as complex as pension funds… And I’m not joking either.

Before you go and decide on which provider you’re going to use and what a good price is to spend on a triple-play solution (i.e. broadband, telephone and TV in one package), you need to answer yourself a few questions about your internet usage, telephone usage and TV habits.

1. Broadband: There are 3 very important factors to take into account here: Speed, Contention Ratio and CAP-Rate.

1.1. Speed: If you’re using your computer simply to browse the internet, download the occasional MP3, iTune or movie from time to time, you should be able to get away with 2Mb download speed. On the other hand, if you’re downloading a lot of stuff you might want to look into a minimum of 4 to 8Mb as this - in theory at least - gives you a higher download speed. Again, this depends on weather you’re using ADSL or Cable.

1.1.1.ADSL: If you’re looking into ADSL, providers might tell you that your can get “up to” 2 Mb or “up to” 8Mb download speeds. The “up to” is the most important part as they can never guarantee that they will be able to provide you with the maximum speed. This is because of the way data is being transferred over a copper line (i.e. voltage). The variable is the distance. In it most basic explanation it’s just a physics game:
Voltage (=electricity) creates heat.
Heat creates friction.
Friction causes signal degradation.

Of course there are loads of other factors involved but as I said, this is the most basic level on how DSL operates. What this that the farther a signal needs to travel over a line, the more signal degradation there is, up to a point where the degradation has reached the level that the device on the other end of the line is not capable any more of reading the signal. With DSL, data is transferred in frequency bands, and the higher the frequency band used, the stronger the signal is (in terms of voltage), the faster the signal travels, the more heat it creates, the more friction occurs, the higher the signal degradation and the lower the distance the signal can travel before it can’t be read any more by the system on the other side of the line.

In practice, this means that a 2Mb signal travels a lot slower than an 8Mb signal but it also travels a lot further. To get up to 8Mb, you need to be as close to the BT telephone exchange as 2 Km. Around the 3.5 to 4KM mark, you should be able to receive up to 4Mb. Around 6Km you’d be happy to receive 2Mb and over 8Km they simply won’t provide you with any ADSL broadband any more as you’re too far away to receive a decent signal. And that is what they mean with “up to”. If you get an 8Mb ADSL line, you might only be receiving 4Mb.

As mentioned at the beginning of my explanation, ADSL runs over the copper telephone line to your house. I should have said; it runs over the “BT Copper line”. This means that whatever ISP you’re going for, they should be delivering your ADSL connection over the same copper line so their maximum speed should more or less be the same. ISP’s usually know how far away you are from the BT exchange so you can ask them what they reckon what speed you’ll be receiving.


1.1.2. Cable: The copper telephone line used for ADSL is basically just 2 copper pair wires (UK) or 4 copper pairs (US) with some plastic shielding around it. Cable is using Coax which is built up of a central core (conductor), an insulator around the core, a metallic shield and a plastic shield to wrap it all up. Construction of coaxial cables varies substantially and there is enough written on the internet about it already without me having to mention it here. It suffices to say that coaxial cable can handle higher frequencies a lot better than a standard copper pair and that data transfer is much faster over longer distances. As such, no matter how far away you are from the closest exchange, the rate of data trough put will almost always be the same. With cable, distance is not an issue in order to determine what speed of bandwidth you’re likely to receive. If they say 4Mb, you’re almost certain you’ll receive that speed.

1.2. CAP-Rate got introduced a few years ago because there were so many people signing up for broadband that internet providers were struggling with backbone capacity.

In the late 90’s early 2000’s, the Internet was going to be this and that, eBusiness was the new buzzword, web design companies were sprouting out of the ground left, right and center and to cater for this growing demand of data transfer, companies like BT and NTL were chucking fibre into the ground as if there was no tomorrow…

And all of the sudden, the .com industry collapsed, loads of web design companies had to close their doors, books about eBusiness slowly and gradually disappeared from the bookshelf's and it appeared that the internet would end up to be the privilege of companies but not for the everyday consumer. As a result, there was so much redundant cable sitting in the ground, no one knew what to do with it… But then broadband stuck its head around the corner as a replacement of dialup and ISDN. People were chaffed at initial speeds of 128 to 256K… Then came 512K, 1Mb, etc… Even up to the point where 2Mb broadband pretty much became the standard there were no capacity issue.

Nowadays 8Mb is pretty much the standard. 24Mb is taking over slowly and gradually and in about 5 to 10 years time we’re all highly likely to get 50 to 100Mbps entering our living room… Anyway, back to the present: 8Mb (even 24Mb broadband) is running over the same physical telephone lines as the old 128K, 256K, 512K, etc… broadband. But with higher download speeds comes much more data traffic going over the internet and where 5 years ago, backbone capacity was not an issue, now everyone is looking at having to upgrade their networks in order to be able to cater for the demand… And there is a very hefty price tag involved in that one.

The way around it (and I hope it’s only for the time being) is to limit the amount of data people can download by giving them a monthly allowance. Talk-Talk for instance (The Carphone warehouse BB brand) is giving you 40Gig per month standard which is pretty much enough for at least 80% of consumer broadband users. However, other ISP’s provide you as little as 10Gig per month. That is still more than enough for your average internet browsing and downloading the occasional MP3 or iTune, but if you’re going to stream video over it you might reach your 10Gig monthly allowance pretty quickly. In my view, having an 8Mb internet connection with only a 10Gig monthly download allowance doesn’t make sense. Most ISP’s will increase your monthly allowance if you pay them a little extra subscription per month but their initial advertised price will be the once with the lowest allowance. So if you’re shopping around for a BB connection into your home, make sure you know what the monthly download allowance is that is provided by your ISP, if that is enough for your personal internet usage and if not, how much it will cost you extra per month to upgrade your allowance.

1.3. Contention Ratio: Some ISP’s will give you the choice of choosing a contention ration for your BB connection. Typical ratios are 1:1, 1:5, 1:10, 1:20 and 1:50. A 1:1 contention ratio is a lot higher than a 1:50 contention ration. But what does this mean in practice?

Contention ratio follows the same concept (or the reasons for the concept) as CAP-Rate but on a local scale (i.e. home to exchange) rather than on a national scale like ISP’s networks. Contention ratio refers to the bandwidth available between the BT exchange the BT cabinet at the end of your street. If there are 100 homes connected to this green box on the corner, it doesn’t necessarily mean that between the cabinet and the BT exchange there is capacity enough for 100 2Mb connections…

1:1 contention means that for every 2Mb connection entering the cabinet, there is a 2Mb uplink to the BT exchange. Likewise, 1:50 means that for every 50 2Mb connections entering the cabinet, there is ONLY 1 2Mb connection to the exchange. The lowest priced BB connections typically use a contention ratio of 1:50 although the standard is pretty much 1:20. As said, some ISP’s will let you choose the contention ratio you prefer. However, usually you have no choice. Still, when shopping around for BB and finding out what the best price is for your connection, it helps to ask what contention ratio your ISP is providing.

Telephone and TV channels are somewhat simpler:

2. TV Channels: Again, it depends how much TV you watch, what channels are on offer and if you can choose between different packages. The more TV channels you receive the more you pay. Comparing the different packages and TV channels on offer is a personal choice.

3. Telephone: Don’t be fooled in ISP’s offering you VoIP (Voice over IP) as a telephone package rather than the traditional phone. Unless this means you’re getting your telephone calls for free there is NO BENEFIT in current VoIP offers compared to a standard telephone line.

Going back to how ADSL works… When ADSL was first introduced, the magic of the technology was that an analogue voice signal could be carried over the same physical line as a digital data signal. Even better: ADSL does both at the same time. It just works by sticking a splitter in between your telephone socket and your phone/PC and off you go. Everyone knows that by now.

What the splitter does is transferring both analogue and digital signals over different frequency bands. ADSL is being split up into 256 frequency bands of 4Khz each:

1st 4Khz frequency = Voice (analogue)
2nd to 5thKhz frequencies = buffer between analogue and digital streams
6th to 31stKhz frequencies = upstream data (digital)
32nd to 256thKhz frequencies = downstream data (digital)

In practice, you can plug an IP phone into your ADSL connection and start calling. Heck, how many people are using Skype on their computer to make telephone calls? However Voice video signals are a lot more sensitive then data packets. Over time, cables are degrading when they are in the ground. This means that and ADSL is not really a solid technology to carry VoIP.

Until a few years ago, your telephone connection could be with BT while your BB link was with another provider. All BT did send the voice signal into their telephone network while the data signal was forwarded to the network of your ISP. Then ISP’s started to provide telephone services rather than BT and you could have your telephone and internet connection with the same provider. However, in reality, all that happened was that the above technique was reversed. Your line would still go into the same BT exchange but be connected to a switch belonging to your ISP. The voice signal would be bounced back into BT’s telephone network while the data signal went into the network of your ISP. This technique is called LLU or Local Loop Unbundling.

Nowadays, what VoIP means is that both the voice and data signals are still carried from your home to the BT exchange in the traditional way. However, instead of bouncing the voice signal into BT’s Telephone network, what happens is that this voice signal is being converted into a digital signal and the carried over your ISP’s network… The same network that carries your BB signals. This means you only need one network to carry both voice and digital which should benefit the consumer. Usually you would think that you’ll get at least your telephone calls cheaper or even for free… But to you?

Here’s a real life example: Both Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse are using NTL’s network for their backbone (or at least to a certain extend). But look at the pricing of the telephone calls:

Virgin Media (part of NTL) lets you pay for all your calls.
Tiscali: All calls are for free
Carphone Warehouse: It kinda depends when and who you call…

Basically, if you’re getting your calls for free, the overall package might be more expensive while if you need to pay additionally for your calls, the over all package might be cheaper.


Basically, the above is a very long winded way of trying to explain WHY there is no easy way to say which is the cheapest or best package and the reasons behind it. There are too many things to be aware of and to take into account about your internet, TV and telephone habits before making a decision, and what might be a good package for your neighbour could be a total waste of money to you. In theory, you could find a provider that gives you 8Mb uncapped broadband, a telephone connection and 100 TV channels for £5 per month, but they charge £2 per minute for your telephone calls. However, if you’re making all your telephone calls with your mobile because your mobile provider gives you 400 minutes per month for free and that is about twice as much as you need, than your internet, phone and TV package is a ridiculously cheap deal. For your neighbour who hasn’t got a mobile phone however, the same package might be unaffordable.

If you're still awake after reading this post (lol) think what you need, then start shopping around and don’t get caught up in the prices as they are advertised. You usually end up paying more.