Been looking at this myself (not that wifey will ever let me get Sky Sports!) and the most helpful sites have been uswitch.com (here's the link to the broadband bundles section) and also the Which? website (though you need to subscribe). Sky generally seem to do pretty well on customer approval (both sites give you survey results). Issue with them is that most of their packages only advertise as 2mb broadband speed. Having said that if you phone up with your address, apparently they can often offer you a faster broadband speed - not sure why they wouldn't advertise that. We're currently with BT, and although the service has been pretty good, we are paying over the odds so planning on changing soon.

Haha, I've been given the go-ahead to get Sky Sports!! Not that I've ever had it refused before technically. Probably the first time I've talked about getting it, and no opposition to the idea at all. As long as we've got Living TV, that's all Emily cares about. Sky seem to be doing an offer at the moment where if you get Sky+ and Skytalk, they'll give you 20mb broadband for the first 6 months for free!! After that, I'd probably switch to their 10mb broadband, which is only a fiver a month.

I haven't been massively impressed with Virgin, although they've been ok. The big thing is that I think they usually work out cheaper.

I've got V+ and it's brilliant. Never had a problem with it. I thought I'd never need to record 2 programmes and watch a third, but I have done a few times. You can record 80 hours of TV. The interface is very easy to use. You also get more HD channels than Sky without paying extra (you only have to pay extra for HD if you want the Sky HD channels). Pausing TV is great. also, there's a handy jump-back button, which jumps live TV back 8 seconds, so you can re-watch stuff like goals and shootings.

With regards to broadband, Virgin's network is fibre/coaxial based, which pretty much always means you'll get a faster connection than ADSL (i.e. a connection based over the phone line, which Sky uses) as ASDL typically uses crappy BT overhead wires and their old exchanges. ADSL providers can only say 'up to' a certain speed, as it depends on the quality of the crappy BT phone lines. However, as your house is pretty new, this may not be an issue. Unfortunately, you won't be able to tell until you get in there and phone BT to get them to do a speed test for you.

And, for the package I'm on, V+ is cheaper than Sky+. If sky's current offer makes them cheaper, just phone Virgin and they'll probably match it or better.

You are such a telly addict John! I rarely ever record a programme let alone two at the same time and as for watching a third!!!

Nath, not quite true, if the Sky box goes wrong inside the first year, then you have to pay for repairs. It comes with a years warranty. However, on one occasion I was outside of the 1 year and the sky box failed and I just threatened with leaving unless they gave me a new box for free. They did, but I had to sign up for another year. I would say on the whole Sky's customer services is pretty good.

Nath, the problem I had when 24 was just a black screen seemed to be down to a dodgy splitter, which splits the incoming cable into 2, one for TV, one for the broadband modem. The issue wasn't with Virgin. Virgin customer service has been good in my experience. For me it came down to 2 things really, as the phone and TV packages are very similar: broadband quality/speed and price. Virgin was better on both.

Dan, dunno why the jump-back button is 8 seconds (might actually be 7 - I can't remember), but it's generally a good timeframe as it shows enough of what I've wanted to replay. You can keep pressing it to go back further if you want.

Ben, I'm not the telly addict, Chloe is. For example, last night we recorded flash forward (on series record) and some program Chloe wanted to watch about kids in slums I think, and we watched something else about people starting up businesses. All I wanted to watch was flash forward.

Just thought I'd check something else. If you're watching a programme that you've recorded, can you still record one (with Sky) or two (with Virgin) programmes at the same time?

On virgin, yes

They do, and at a cheaper price than they had before after a ruling by the competition commission (or some body like that) apparently.

I'm sure on Sky you can record 2 programmes whilst watching a pre-recorded one.