Highfield - Virgin or other Broadband provider?

You don't pay line rental on fibre to the home, you can get a 9 month contract with virgin at 22.50 a month for 30MB with 49.95 connection. Other providers are cheaper, but you will be paying £13 line rental.

Yes you do. The £13.90 line rental is included in the £22.50 a month. Hence why when you add Medium Phone for £5.90 extra a month, the bill changes to show £14.50 for broadband and phone and £13.90 for line rental.

And it isn't fibre to the home. This is fibre to the cabinet, then copper the rest of the way.

BT Infinity 100MB (not the 76/38MB) is FTTH and costs £35 a month + £10.75 line rental and requires an 18 month contract.

Yes you do. The £13.90 line rental is included in the £22.50 a month. Hence why when you add Medium Phone for £5.90 extra a month, the bill changes to show £14.50 for broadband and phone and £13.90 for line rental.

And it isn't fibre to the home. This is fibre to the cabinet, then copper the rest of the way.

Nope... I pay £18.50 p/m (which will rise to £22.50 after 6 months) for just Broadband (no phone line) and my internet is provided via coaxial cable between the cabinet and my flat.



See above. It's definitely not copper cable.

It changed the bill to highlight the discount you get from bundling broadband and phone together.

Line rental is rent paid to BT for use of the line, all broadband suppliers run off the BT network. the Virgin fibre network is a separate network and if you do not use a phone line you do not pay a line rental. Virgin is essentially FTTH, with coaxial on the last leg (much better shielding and less impedance than a phone line), there is no copper wiring at any stage in the infrastructure, this is why you have to have a technician install the line.

I am not upselling Virgin here, just pointing out the facts, most students are on contract mobile so have no use for a phone line, therefore the 9 month deal can work out very cheap for a fast broadband connection (although Virgin routers and customer service are a pile of ****).

There is no discount. It's obvious that the broadband is only costing £8.60 a month in reality. The bill may not say that, but that's whats happening.

Read Virgin's own terms and conditions... "Phone line rental: Line rental is currently £13.90 a month." BT has nothing to do with this and I never mentioned them. That is ADSL. Virgin's phone services and broadband services both use the same fibre network. You pay the line rental regardless in reality. Hence the £49.95 installation charge for either.

Coaxial is copper inside... Jesus christ. Read up on FTTC/FTTH.

That's why BT Infinity 100Mb FTTH requires an engineer to fit an Openreach Fibre modem to accept the fibre cabling to the home versus BT Infinity 38/76MB and Virgin which just require them to fit a box connecting you to the cabinet via coaxial cable, and if you've already got a box, no engineer at all.

I'm not upselling Virgin either, just stating the facts. If you buy their 30MB broadband, they will connect you to their cabinet via copper coaxial cabling and charge you £8.60 for the broadband and £13.90 for the line, £22.50 a month. You can add phone if you want it for another £5.90 a month. There's a reason that phone line rental term and condition is at the bottom of each of the individual broadband, phone and TV pages on their site.

Coax is copper inside, I was being a dick, but it is distinct from the copper cables in the BT network which is the point I was trying to put across.

Yes Virgin operate phone over their network, but that network joins the BT network hence why we can all phone each other, hence the line rental.

Virgin even advertise "no line rental" on their broadband only page.

It doesn't really matter on the cost, you still pay them pretty much the same amount and all in is a competitive price.

Edit: In fact they even state here your broadband is only £7.50 when you get a phone bundle. http://store.virginmedia.com/broadband/compare-broadband/index.html

So you've got a discount that's no longer open to new customers? Relevance?

And coaxial is copper inside... *facepalm*

Do you work for BT or something? There is really no need to be this argumentative and it in no way helps the OP.

I am just trying to give relevant and factual information to the OP; the key point is that I pay for purely Broadband without a bundled phone line, despite your insistence that this isn't available. The price I personally pay was merely a side issue (i.e. I currently pay £18.50 because that was the deal that was offered, but this is simply a temporary discount of the £22.50 p/m package.

Yes, but you were clearly using the term 'copper cable' to imply that Virgin Media broadband is delivered down a bog standard phone line, which it isn't. Even if that's not what you were implying, it's certainly what others will infer from your post if they are unaware that Virgin offers cable services that are entirely independent of BT's infrastructure.

I don't work for anyone at the moment. I'm about to move to uni. Neither does you guys proclaiming obvious lies that you've lapped up from Virgin's marketing department.

I'm just pointing out that with Virgin Broadband, you're always gonna pay line rental one way or another even if your bill doesn't say so. Otherwise they'd charge you the £13.90 line rental on top of £22.50 for the broadband when you add a £5.90 home phone package, wouldn't they? They don't because it uses the same connection as the broadband, which you're already paying for. You don't suddenly get a massive £13.90 discount on the broadband the minute you add a phone package.

No I wasn't. I was using the term copper cable, because coaxial is copper cable and the definition of FTTC is fibre to the cabinet and then copper cable to the house. I wasn't implying that Virgin Media broadband is delivered down a bog standard phone line at all (although it is if you're not in a cable area), I'm not an idiot.

Virgin's phone packages don't use the BT infrastructure. They use the same connection as your broadband... That's my entire point. When you add a phone package, they don't actually install anything because you've already got the connection. It's done via software and you're assigned a landline number randomly I assume. Same for TV.

Virgin's phone packages don't use the BT infrastructure. They use the same connection as your broadband... That's my entire point. When you add a phone package, all they do is connect your master BT socket (if you've got one, otherwise they fit a new one) to the box outside your house that you got with the broadband via coaxial. You could actually install it yourself. Still runs through coaxial to the cabinet, then onto their fibre network. Same for TV. All through the same line. Hence you're always renting their line and the cost of the broadband is inflated by this. You don't just get a massive discount for adding a phone package + line rental :P It's all the same to them.