Thursday 29 September 2011

Virgin Media slash activation fee for TiVo: 500Gb TiVo now free; 1TB TiVo now £49.95

Virgin Media have changed their TV packages today, which not only makes TiVo more attractive to new and existing customers - but also marks the end of the legacy V+ HD:
  • For new customers
    The activation fee for the 500Gb TiVo was previously £49.95. The fee for that box has now dropped to £0.00.

    The activation fee for the 1TB TiVo has dropped to £49.95 (previously £99.95).

    If new customers order online, they get free installation. As for additional boxes:
    Any subsequent TiVo box purchases in the same order will be charged at £49.95 and £99.95 activation fee for the 500Gb TiVo and 1Tb TiVo box respectively.
  • For existing customers
    The activation fee prices are as above, but you have to pay an installation fee of £49.95. Want more boxes? Well:
    Irrespective of the number of set-top boxes you already have, for every new sale - If you take a 500GB TiVo box as your first box, the activation fee will be waived; if you take a 1TB TiVo box as your first box, we will reduce the activation fee to £49.95

The £3 monthly TiVo charge (per customer account) still applies. Additional boxes will (usually) cost an additional £6.50 per month.

Today's news continues Virgin's big push for TiVo and also marks the online ordering death of V+ HD. The legacy PVR is now no longer available to order from Virgin's website. It was going to happen sooner or later, and its an important step towards Virgin's long-term plan to get all of their TV customers on MPEG 4 compatible hardware, which would mean reduced bandwidth usage for linear HD channels and hopefully, more HD channels.

An endangered species

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

just ordered the 500Gb TiVo to replace the V+HD in my bedroom. Install fee of £49, but no £3 a month for the extra TiVo box...my package is 1.50 a month cheaper too...result.

gsituffers said...

manu76
result !!
glad you appreciate what vm can do for our customers
for the rest of customers -info is correct getting rid of old scientific altlantic boxes allows vm to swap to mpeg4 technology which as it says will mean streamlined bandwidth which can result in more hd channels available on the network and as advised eden hd etc coming soon and talks for itv2hd etc

Anonymous said...

I`m all for more HD channels. Ain`t gonna rant on about Sky Atlantic either like most do, as to be honest from a personal point of view, I have channels which I watch more anyway. Don`t care weather VM get it or not. That`s a personal view, so no haters please.....

GingerTez said...

I'm disappointed that the £49.95 installation fee is mandatory... surely seeing as I want to replace one V+ HD box with the Tivo all I need to do is plug the same wire into the new box and connect up a network cable from the router.

For £26 a year (£3pcm) it's attractive, but adding a one-off charge of £50 just for an engineer to come and unpack a box and plug a couple of cables in is a bit steep!

Sorry for the grumble!

GingerTez said...

I'm disappointed that the £49.95 installation fee is mandatory... surely seeing as I want to replace one V+ HD box with the Tivo all I need to do is plug the same wire into the new box and connect up a network cable from the router.

For £26 a year (£3pcm) it's attractive, but adding a one-off charge of £50 just for an engineer to come and unpack a box and plug a couple of cables in is a bit steep!

Sorry for the grumble!

dhcp said...

I think its not fair that existing customers have to pay the engineer fee. I have been with virgin for many years and this is the thanks I get? Why cant it be sent direct to me to do it myself.

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