UKH

Virgin Media hiked up the broadband loyalty fees from £35.5 to £43.5 while new contracts start at £28, I realised it is time to move on. I can’t change the deal online as it throws me an error and I tried to talk to them  three times now. The best they could offer was a £1 discount. 
 

Vodafone offering is pretty good, but I’m concerned about changing the broadband due to current situation - I am working from home. 
 

Since I would be moving to OpenReach, is it possible to have those connections in parallel and cancelling Virgin Media contract after getting a Vodafone line? Or is there any way to minimise the risk not to end up without internet for days?

In reply to PPP:

One or the other, not both at the same time on the same landline.

Edit: looking at later replies maybe I should be ignored!

Test your phone as a mobile hotspot as a backup.

In reply to PPP:

It depends what sort of connection you have with VM. I was in exactly the same position as you few months ago. Since my VM connection was a cable one and was swapping to Vodafone (fiber VDSL). I had 2 connections active (2 routers) at the same time.

Once Vodafone was active and all working fine I simply cancelled VM. Mind you it took Vodafone almost 2 months (apparently due to OpenReach fault) to activate my phone line. As I had line in place but not active. 

So if your current VM broadband is cable (not VDSL or ADSL) then yes you can have 2 connections at the same time. However if current connection is using a phone line, then you cannot do it that way.

In reply to PPP:

as above, if virgin are using their own network which they will do in most cases then you can have both running at the same time. something to find out is what kind of service you will get from openreach ie adsl, vdsl or fibre to the premises and compare that to what you have at the moment both in regards to speed and price.

In reply to PPP:

As previously said, yes it’s possible to have two broadband services if VM are using their own cable for everything. However, if you have a package and are transferring your actual landline number to your new provider (rather than getting a new number) there will be only a limited overlap period. As you can’t have the same number on more than one line, it will start the VM 30 day cancellation period. You should though have two broadband services for at least some overlap period depending on timings.

That said, a word of caution: in my case when I switched away from VM, instead of having the two broadband services overlap, as I planned,  I ended up with no VM service (no phone, broadband, or tv) for a couple of weeks as VM switched me totally off within an hour of notifying them that I was transferring and to start the 30 day cancellation period. They were then a right pain to deal with. Long story short - They claimed human error, would reconnect broadband and tv, but they didn’t, then claimed it would take 72 hrs, but did nothing, further excuses/reasons, repeat until I gave up.

Edit: Oh be warned, if you have credit with VM, unless it’s changed since my switch, they take a minimum of 90 days to refund after the cancellation period has expired!1

In reply to PPP:

Thanks for replies everyone! 
 

Phone tethering would be costly and I don’t think I would get away with weeks without internet. My employer wouldn’t be happy for sure! Makes me think if I should give VM support another go and fight for a better deal. 

In reply to PPP: I’m an openreach engineer, you can have as many phone/bb lines as you wish to pay for to your property.. as long as you don’t cancel the old one they will just provide a new one alongside it. Like mentioned above virgin uses a different network to us anyway but the same still applies. 

last thing to note is you usually have a cooling off period when you have your new service so if the new service isn’t good enough(speeds etc) just cancel the new one and stick with the old one(that you never cancelled).

In reply to LukeyG:

Thanks! 

I should have spent more attention to the warnings, as I am really good at ignoring them:

"Important information during the COVID-19 outbreak: if you’re switching to Vodafone broadband from a non-Openreach provider such as Virgin Media, we’d recommend that you don’t cancel your current service until your Vodafone broadband has been successfully installed."

With a £80 Amazon voucher from DailyMail I hunted online and £20.95 pm instead of £43.50 pm, I call that success. Just need to wait for two weeks to get it sorted out.