back to article Virgin Media hikes broadband, phone prices by five per cent

Virgin Media will jack up the price tag on its broadband and phone service bundles by up to £3.99 from early next year. The Liberty Global-owned company has written to customers to warn them of the price hike, which will hit their bills from February next year. Virgin Media has been fielding complaints about the price rise, …

  1. Ktsecful

    It seems to me that it would anger customers a lot less if they just introduced a new higher tier package when they upgraded, instead of telling everyone they're getting a 'free' upgrade and then bumping the price up almost immediately. I guess they think not enough people will care, but this is the kick up the arse I needed to switch.

    Any recommendations? I'm leaning towards A&A or Zen.

    1. Steve 53

      Both have a great reputation. A&A don't offer an unlimited service though, which you might be used to...

      By the time you include line rental, it's very hard to beat the virgin media "Broadband only" option (the price rise for this was back in september/october) in terms of price and performance.

      1. Buzzword

        ADSL can't hold a candle to cable broadband, but according to a well-known money-saving expert, you can currently grab 12 months of ADSL broadband + telephone, including line rental, for just £111. That's cheaper than most companies charge for line rental alone.

        1. Kraggy

          Sorry, that's just totally untrue.

          I have both VM cable (recently upped to 100mb 'free' *cough*) and BT infinity 2 and I see no difference in performance (clearly the BT is now slower but performs perfectly according to its spec) and would quite happily end my VM service and use only BT if I had to choose one or the other .. I likely wouldn't close my BT and keep only VM.

          1. Mutton Jeff

            Is that on a WiFi connection? At my gaff I get ~50-75mb on WiFi, tested with a cable I did get the full whack at 152mb

        2. Stuart 22

          "ADSL can't hold a candle to cable broadband"

          Theoretically but my Zen is a rock solid 60/16 Mbps and has been since fibre was installed. My daughter's Virgin cable is all over the place and has been for years but she has no choice, the engineers who come to sort are useless. It may be able to go faster but when you really need a connection it is 0/0 Mbps. Game over.

          But then 200 Gb/month is more than enough for me. I only use it to run an IT business ;-)

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Meh

            "Maybe take FTTC from a half-decent ISP like Plusnet"

            "Swapped" from BT to Plusnet (using a stupid offer from Topcashback, which made it almost free), and the Wifi is dire compared to BT and the router needs a reboot about every 2 months.

            But the actual speed is fine.

          2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

            "...my Zen is a rock solid 60/16 Mbps... My daughter's Virgin cable is all over the place"

            Yes, but that can vary wildy from area to area and provider to provider. My experience with VM since being one of the first installed in my area with a "blistering fast" 512Kb/s is about three outages, one of which took 3 days to sort out due to a faulty cable modem, one Christmas outage when they had a big flood and one other I forget the cause of.

            On the other hand, I know of VM customers in other areas where it seems to have been oversold and the local loops can get congested. Neighbours with ADSL are always whinging but being with different providers I assume it's the BT wires that are problem.

            The differentiator is the service when something goes wrong, but I can't really comment on that since I've not dealt with VM tech support for a few years. Past contacts were good but I've never been unlucky enough to get Indian TS.

      2. srgvd

        > By the time you include line rental, it's very hard to beat the virgin media "Broadband only" option (the price rise for this was back in september/october) in terms of price and performance.

        Yep. Price cartels are notoriously hard to beat on prices.

        1. RegGuy1 Silver badge

          Price cartels are notoriously hard to beat on prices.

          Yes, you mean the sorts of cartels that publish their prices so everyone can see it's a cartel. But try to prove it...

          'Honest guv, we're not a cartel. We are just copying their prices, as you can see from their website. Wot's wrong with that?'

      3. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        With A&A you'll have to pay the FTTC installation charge up-front.

        Maybe take FTTC from a half-decent ISP like Plusnet, make sure you go via a site like topcashback, and move to A&A after the contract ends.

        1. h4rm0ny

          No traffic management on Andrews & Arnold, however. Also, they're actively against the Snooper's Charter which I have to say is a positive sign.

      4. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        There is very little in it, price-wise.

        VM broadband only (50M): £30.25/month

        VM broadband with phone line: £17.50/month + £17/month = £34.50/month (there is a discount for the first 12 months)

        Generic ISP: you can easily find 38M fibre at £17.50/month plus phone rental, reduced to £15/month if you take phone rental from the same ISP, and you can also pre-pay your phone rental for a year and pay £15.50 equivalent. So hey presto, you are back to £30.50 per month.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          @AC prepaid Virgin line rental is also available for £164 (£13.67/month). Not much to choose between them, an extra 12mbit for 67p/month. I try to cancel my line rental every year to provoke a retention offer, which is how I'm paying less for it than renting an incoming SIP number would be.

          I was surprised to see unlimited broadband deals are now competitive with cable where I live. Less than a year ago they were all prohibitively expensive and actual speeds pathetically low.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Odd, I pay 23.50 for 100mb with VM, I also plug in a sip box (obi) and pay 2.40 (voiphone) for a local 01 number per month. Total cost for broadband and home phone 25.90 and yes I know it's not a traditional home phone and it's reliant on the broadband.

    2. Sykobee

      "the price for bundled packages were increasing to reflect the "speed boost" to its service"

      But that was meant to be free!

      Isn't this Bait and Switch?

      1. Omgwtfbbqtime

        "Isn't this Bait and Switch?"

        It would be if they hadn't offered to let customers leave early because of the price rise.

    3. Tom Chiverton 1

      Zen.

      My ADSL2 was off the other day when I woke up, despite the OpenReach box having all the right lights. Rebooted that and my router while spending 5 minutes on hold to Zen tech support.

      Who took down all the details, spotted it as a cabinet fault and said it was reported.

      Two hours later, they *rang me back personally* to report it was fixed, and did I agree.

      Compare that to Virgin!

    4. pcoventry

      I was with AA but their limits are hard, ZEN didn't care if I did 20TB in a month. VM put my price up and didn't even tell me! Cheeky swines!

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "20TB in a month"

        Out of curiosity, what were you doing to shift 20TB in only a month from a domestic connection?

  2. Fullbeem

    The most basic fibre broadband package they do is 50Mb for £31

    How about a 20Mb for £20, or even 10Mb for £10

    I dont need 200Mb downstream, and certainly dont want a phone line.

    (Moving into my new flat this weekend)

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      How about a 20Mb for £20, or even 10Mb for £10

      I suspect this doesn't make sense technically, and that the infrastructure cost is the same regardless of speed. It would be a little bit like offering you a reduction in fuel duty if you promised not to do more than 30 on motorways.

      But around here the choice is 100Mbps from Virgin or around 8 for BT, which is one reason for not changing.

      1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

        Re: How about a 20Mb for £20, or even 10Mb for £10

        I have Virgin Business cable.. £79 for 10/0.768 with a static IP.

        And res customers thing _they_ are the ones getting the raw deal?

        I can upgrade mine.. to 50/5 for £69.. plus £10 for a /29 to get the useable static IP again.. :(

    2. Gordon 10

      I was in a similar boat 6 months ago. I seem to recall that getting the BB + Phone package was actually cheaper than getting just BB - though line rental may have been excluded on that.

      Not to mention that line rental on a "line" wholly owned by Virgin is a bit of a scamola.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Not to mention that line rental on a "line" wholly owned by Virgin is a bit of a scamola."

        The service doesn't work all that well without a line into your premises. Data speeds drop off dramatically.

        I think the general idea is that you can see on your bill an amount for the fixed infrastructure required to serve you and then an amount for the services you choose to buy over that infrastructure.

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "How about a 20Mb for £20, or even 10Mb for £10"

      It costs Virgin the same to serve you apart from a few largely theoretical pennies. £31 is the point at which they'll make some kind of return on your service. ISP margins are tiny - maybe a couple of pounds a month per customer.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        £31 is the point at which they'll make some kind of return on your service.

        I doubt that. A marginal customer on the existing network would probably be profitable at around £18 a month including the costs of customer acquisition, billing, modem and connection to the premises. These increases have very little to do with the token speed increases, and are simply down to the Cable Cowboy milking the customer base. When he's squeezed the pips he'll sell it all on to some desperate but clueless corporate buyer.

        OFCOM being clueless doesn't help, because VM's hand is greatly strengthened by the botch OFCOM have made of regulating Openreach. If Openreach were a properly regulated, free standing business, they'd have far more interest in offering better and cheaper broadband, but as things stand, VM know that most customers will be reluctant to go back to BT's shoddy and inept offer, and suffer the slower speeds.

        Better still (and even more unlikely) OFCOM could mandate unbundling of VM's cable network as well as Openreach, so that third parties can offer services over cable. That would p1ss on the Cable Cowboy's chips, and I'd be delighted at that.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Virgin's most recent figures show a profit of £220M for the year from a customer base of 4.53M. That's about £40 per customer per year. £3 a month - though that includes services other than Internet.

          Margins are tight - they made that profit from a turnover of £4.2B - so somewhere around 5%.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Margins are tight - they made that profit from a turnover of £4.2B - so somewhere around 5%.

            If you believe the Liberty Global accounts, the group actually lost $0.8bn in the last nine reported months. Who'd have thunk it, that the Cable Cowboy is so kind as to run his business at a loss, to offer cheap broadband to Brits?

            A cynic might conclude that the accounts aren't worth the paper they are published on, but as I'm well known as a trusting & optimistic type, that wouldn't include me.

        2. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

          "When he's squeezed the pips he'll sell it all on to some desperate but clueless corporate buyer."

          Liberty Global haven't long bought VM so I don't see them bailing out in the short term. Especially since they are big in the cable market elsewhere and this is the core business. Of course, the fact they just spent a huge wodge of cash buying VM it comes as no surprise that above inflation price rises are happening.

      2. dotdavid

        "ISP margins are tiny - maybe a couple of pounds a month per customer."

        I would suggest they cut the junk mail marketing budget then. They're always sending me crap addressed 'to the householder' despite me being a customer, and addressed crap trying to get me to "upgrade" my broadband-only contract to a mobile phone deal.

        1. Chloe Cresswell Silver badge

          Junk

          Oh that... I'm a virgin business customer.. and get virgin cable "to the householder" junk once a week, extoling the virtues of canning my static IP and business service for the home service... :(

          1. Simon Harris

            Re: Junk - static IP.

            I know it's supposed to be dynamic, but I think my Virgin residential IP hasn't changed in over 3 years.

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Junk

            well, all the junk mail with "return to" (and virgin shit comes here at least 1 - 2 a month) I bundle and drop in the nearest post box, once a month or so. What worries me though is that the Post Office don't bother, and at some stage, just empty the "return to sender" into the nearest garbage bin, instead of returning them to Virgin, and charging them for the service. I DO hope they deliver and charge though. Funny thing is, if more people bothered the same way, this junk mail would stop. Or, more likely, they'd stop supplying return address :(

  3. Gordon 10

    I love they way they have been pre-announcing the speed upgrades

    Mine doesn't arrive until early 2016 according to their website last time I checked.

    Which means I'll be paying extra for the "free" speed bump well in advance of that date.

    1. Philippe

      Re: I love they way they have been pre-announcing the speed upgrades

      I am in the same boat.

      My speed upgrade is planned for between April and September next year, although they sent me two e-mails telling me "soon". A year away isn't "soon".

      the price rise however will be "soon".

    2. dotdavid

      Re: I love they way they have been pre-announcing the speed upgrades

      When they first announced the speed upgrades I checked and it was saying it would be available this time next year. I logged on today and was told it was now available. Maybe I read the date wrong or a glitch? I guess I'll find out soon enough.

      Anyway it's worth having a double-check on "My Virgin Media"

      1. werdsmith Silver badge

        Re: I love they way they have been pre-announcing the speed upgrades

        I really don't need any speed upgrade on my 50Mb.

        I rarely do multi-GB downloads, all video streaming plays perfectly on several devices concurrently (even for different services) and web pages download faster than either the browser renders them or the source web server can pump them out.

        so my upgrade from 50 to 70 Mb/s actually gives me nothing.

        But VM have been sending out sweetener mails about this speed increase for a while, I suppose to soften the price increase. But does anyone actually pay full price for VM? I go through the same retentions ritual every 12 months and get the price pushed down. Paying full price as asked for VM services would be as daft as going into a car dealer and just agreeing to pay full list price for a car. Nobody with even half a brain would do that.

  4. twelvebore
    Paris Hilton

    I'm not a fan of their customer service when things go wrong (including the recent e-mail fiasco), but in general I have to say their BB service for me for the past 10+ years has been pretty bloody good. I pay for 100Mb/s and I get that. The lowest tier from VM here is 50Mbit, which is more than the maximum offered by anyone using the BT infrastructure.

    Obviously I don't like price rises, but my choices are limited, and I do feel I need 100Mbit as I work from home a lot.

    The line rental crap really does get my goat though. VM charge it because they can - because BT/etc. also charge it. I wish OFCOM would force a bit more competition over line rental, but I'm not holding out hope, as they have far too many other things to screw up.

    As for the "it's cheaper if you have a landline phone too" rubbish, I do wonder why they are so interested in steering me towards having a landline. I presume it's that they make good money out of selling my phone number to third parties, and they'd miss out on that if I didn't have one.

    1. dotdavid

      "I do wonder why they are so interested in steering me towards having a landline"

      They make obscene profits on the actual calls I think. To get decent overall call costs you have to sign up for bundled packages of minutes at £X/month. Of course most people won't use all of their minutes, and of course the competition don't offer the exact same benefits in their bundled packages making direct comparisons difficult...

      The more services you have with them the more ways they have to tempt you to "upgrade" to extra services.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        It's been cheaper use PAYG mobile than VM landline for several years now with the right SIM. Back when cancelling line rental actual made a big difference, VM openly told me they'd rather give me nearly free line rental in case I made a few calls, the prices are so excessive.

        I think they got confused by how many calls we make on included 'free' weekend calls without noticing we've not made a charged call in more years than I can remember. Removing the price saving for dropping line rental is probably a belated response to that.

      2. HarryBl

        18185 sorts that out...

    2. werdsmith Silver badge

      and I do feel I need 100Mbit as I work from home a lot.

      That's like saying I need a car that can do 150 MPH because I drive a lot for my job.

      Remote setups work very well on ADSL with poxy 4Mb/s connections, if you look while you are working at how much of your available capacity is used by a citrix desktop (for example) it's absolute peanuts. And don't forget your upstream speed is a small fraction of your 100Mb/s.

      For working from home a lot I would put rock solid reliability and service way ahead of down speed. I use a "business broadband" ADSL service which is paid by my employer (would work as an expense for a self-employed person) for my homeworking and the VM BB service is the entertainment one for the home - but VM acts as a backup in case the ADSL has problems.

  5. srgvd

    Arrived to UK two years ago from Russia for a work contract. Got a most basic offer from VM: £20pm for 30Mbps. It's £28pm for the same CIR already, and it goes to £32pm next quarter. 60% increase over two years. 'To keep up with competition'.

    Meanwhile I was paying £8pm for 20Mbps back in Moscow. It's £4.99 for 150Mbps now. Day-long service deteriorations - all too common with Virgin - are unimaginable (because competition is fierce). Also in-term hikes are outlawed, and you can terminate at any time you want on one month notice (so, no termed contract).

    Apparently, Russian telecom regulators care more about consumers than British do.

    1. Jediben

      Russian watchdogs - They probably have much sharper teeth and know where the bones are buried. OFCOM, on the other hand, can barely lick its own balls.

      1. John Brown (no body) Silver badge

        "OFCOM, on the other hand, can barely lick its own balls."

        Upvoted for that line.

  6. bwrl

    If it helps them fix their network reliability issues then fine. Worst I have ever seen.

  7. wyatt

    This is annoying, VM is the only decent provider in my area. BT are at last upgrading the exchange (Kings Norton) but it'll probably be another year until this happens.

    I also have the problem that my work pay for the internet cost but not the phone line so need the cheapest rental possible. Something which pushes the cost to myself up depending on the provider.

    However, at least now I will have a bargaining chip with VM (one day!).

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What I really hate...

    Is the way Virgin always cheerfully spin price increases as 'great news' and their claiming things are 'free' despite having to be paid for. I would be far happier if they just said "sorry; prices are going up" than telling me I should be delighted by that.

    I am on 50Mbps (due to rise to 70Mbps), TV M with Tivo, and with line rental that's £39 per month, £468 per year before any increase. I don't think that's too bad as it gives me what I want and, even with an increase, still cheaper than anything comparable from BT.

    I am perhaps lucky in having what I want and having had few problems with Virgin (their recent email problems seem to have been resolved) so 'better the devil I know' than taking a leap into the unknown with the possibility of becoming far worse off. When it comes to any price increase I guess I will just have to suck it up.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: What I really hate...

      You are paying too much. You need to start talking to their retentions people.

  9. nuclearstar

    VM know full well people will ask to leave. The price rise is aimed at those that don't even bother looking at their bill. Those are the ones that will just pay it.

    Those that phone up and ask to leave will be offered a discount package that will probably give you another 12 months on the same price you are paying now.

    I phoned up to cancel last year, in fact I phoned to cancel my TV and phone and just keep the broadband. They offered me a discount if I kept the phone line. so my 50meg and phone costs me less than 50 meg on its own. It is all about subscriber numbers.

  10. john devoy

    This isnt bait and switch, its just blatant lies. There is no other option in my area, a switch to BT would drop me from 150mb to 4mb.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      No 4G where you live? Broadband doesn't have to come down a cable.

  11. Pen-y-gors

    You get what you pay for

    I've been with BT Business for my basic 8Mb broadband for several years (excellent Uk support!), plus BT domestic for the actual phone line with Anytime packages (mobiles don't work round here). Our exchange now has infinity, and our cabinet should be working in a month or so, so I'm looking at options. In terms of reliability and support I'm looking at switching entirely to BT Business, which I reckon will be about £75-80 month for phone line, anytime call package including mobiles, CLI and 1571, and unlimited 76Mb/20Mb broadband on a fixed IP address. Not cheap, but really not that expensive compared to alternatives - and only about £10-15 a month more than I'm paying now.

    I suppose I could look at VM cable - oh, I forgot, Branson isn't interested in cabling up rural areas.

    1. dotdavid

      Re: You get what you pay for

      Branson isn't interested in cabling up rural areas.

      Branson isn't interested in cabling up any areas. His relationship to Virgin Media is he sold the rights to the brand to NTL many years ago, from what I recall.

  12. Aristotles slow and dimwitted horse

    * sigh *

    So I currently pay £24 per month to Virgin for 50meg BB which includes a phone line that I have not ever used. Yes it annoys me that I receive an email stating that I am getting a "free" speed increase, but it is inevitable that I will end up paying for it somewhere down the line. I will phone them up and demand to not pay for the increase - and generally, once you do manage to get through to someone at VM, I've found them very reasonable.

    The issue though is - where else do you go if you do decide to leave them, when the rest of the cartel are all as bad as each other... or worse.

    1. Danny 2

      Re: * sigh *

      "where else do you go if you do decide to leave them"

      I was kind of hoping some of the smart, decent people commenting here would fill that obvious gap. I guess we all were. *Deep, phlegmy, sigh*

      Personally I'm going to prison, I know I'll get better, less surveilled internet access there and a slightly less insane governance too. I suspect now that Iceland would have been a smarter move for me a couple of years ago but unfortunately my TARDIS has materialised inside my nasal duct, audibly.

  13. Danny 2

    Shot my load

    I just bad-mouthed Virgin on the Talk-talk thread, mainly the difficulty in even cancelling due to their cost-cutting overseas almost English speaking but certainly not Scottish speaking call centre staff. I'm in a bad mood this month, slagging everyone, but El Reg itself is on fire, never better.

    1. werdsmith Silver badge

      Re: Shot my load

      Call during the working day to get people who can understand a Scottish accent, I think the last one I spoke to was actually Scottish.

  14. Bob H

    Excellent, I recently threatened to quit VM and they gave me a discount, then sent me a TiVo which I am paying a few pounds a month for. The TiVo is sh*te, so I can call them up and return it without waiting a year.

  15. NotWorkAdmin

    Line rental....

    Is there really any reason for this to exist anymore? Maybe there's some technical excuse for it, but it seems to me to just be a mechanism for offering something for £10 then in small print saying it'll actually cost £20 because of this spurious surcharge.

    I mean, for VAT it's accepted (and even a legal requirement) for advertisers to include it in pricing for consumers.

    1. Danny 2

      Re: Line rental....

      I asked Virgin about that when I initially paid them. There was already a Virgin line in my flat, and I didn't want a phone line, so what was I paying that £16 per month for? Just to subvert Moore's Law.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Line rental....

        The fixed costs of providing and maintaining your line, and any kit they supply, perhaps?

        1. NotWorkAdmin

          Re: Line rental....

          Yeah, I get that. But by the same token, for example, Tesco don't charge me £1 for a loaf of bread plus a 10p surcharge for their distribution network to keep going without which I'd get no bread. It just seems to me in any other industry operating costs are incorporated into the price you pay.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Line rental....

            "Tesco don't charge me £1 for a loaf of bread plus a 10p surcharge for their distribution network"

            Tesco aren't maintaining an aisle of the supermarket for your exclusive use. For services where you do have exclusive use of something it is generally presented as a separate bill item. I pay a standing charge regardless of usage for water supply, waste water and for my gas connection.

  16. Oli 1

    Dont like the increases? They are letting you leave... more than TalkTalk offer - just sayin.

    Also - when you've left, what do you replace it with? BT or BT via reseller? No way in hell are they coming back into my house.

    For the service i get from virgin they are in my good books.

    although i never have to call them (i know that is painful - but then so is calling talktalk for clients)

    I also dont use their super hub, so im probably not a typical user.

  17. bollos
    Thumb Down

    virgin prices always rising!

    Virgin Media are ALWAYS putting up their prices! they force faster and faster speeds on you, that you don't want or need, then charge you more for it!

  18. Wolfclaw

    So not really a free upgrade, if you can actually get the speed your pay for,oh I forgot about the "up to" clause, maybe I can use that when I pay my next bill, paying up to it in accordance with the speed I get !

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'll be a Virgin

    and rather soon. I mean, I get an "up to 6 MB/s" with a paltry 60GB daylight allowance from Plusnet (generally superb), but I pay through the nose for the line rental, and with the recent price hike on connection charges by BT in September, it's become very expensive to route calls, even through the cheap internet comms. So we're paying approx.15 quid per month for plusnet ADSL, around 20 quid to BT for line rental, plus various call charges. While I hate Virgin as a company (think Argos advert voice, that's virgin "media"), and customer (dis)service worries me, the straight broadband is around 30 quid. And about 10 times faster. If only I could find simple guides on how to set up voip service, we'd take the plunge. It's just sad there's NO competition on cable front, and Virgin know it, so they can do, pretty much what they want. I mean, if you're on a 100 MB service, you're not likely to give it up for an "up to 38MB", are you.

  20. Boris the Cockroach Silver badge

    I'd love

    to dump virgin and its cable

    But to goto what in this area? BT openretch , sky (via openretch) , plus net (via openretch) etc etc

    Sadly VM is the only game in town, service is generally ok, the engineers are good and know what they are doing, the 2nd line helpdesk in Scotland is excellent too, but its all let down by "john" or "jenny" in india being forced (no doubt at gunpoint) to read the 'help' script.

  21. Richard Boyce

    USO, PSTN and SIP.

    I'm with Virgin and have been trying to reduce my costs by ditching the PSTN landline for a couple of years. I've been happily using a SIP adapter on my ordinary desktop phone for many years, so I really don't need Virgin's phone service. The trouble is, Virgin charge more if you ditch the phone. That's both for new customers and for existing customers negotiating a discount. This reflects the absence of competition.

    The major telecom players just make too much money from the charges they've persuaded Ofcom to mandate, and with the call charges for initial connection, distance and time, as if they weren't using the global IP networks to distribute calls. Heaven forbid that too many customers could do that for themselves as easily and cheaply as they visit a web site on the other side of the planet.

    The government's been tallking about a USO for broadband. What about also making it mandatory to offer SIP VoIP services too, while also removing the USO on providing the old PSTN service.

  22. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AGAIN?!?

    3yrs ago, I was paying under £50 per month for my VM bundle.

    After this latest price rise, I'll be paying £79 per month for that same bundle.

    £350 per year MORE for a gradual speed increase from 120Mb to 200Mb is NOT good value for money in my opinion.

  23. Evil_Tom

    Pay up front for line rental to save

    You can pay for your line rental up front with VM to save a little.

    I do this to after going through retentions each year explaining that I can't afford it and want to cut it down or leave. Then after squeezing all that I can out of them, feigning poverty and saying that I'm sure they'd love to get a 5-7% pay increase, just like their bosses (that usually gets them on your side), I ask if I can pay for the line rental up front!

    In previous years it used to be a saving over around £100, but now it's about 40 or £50

  24. djnorth

    From 1800 this evening, Virgin Media has had a major broadband outage, apparently (according to customer services operator) no guarantee of fix in less than 8 days!!! And just look on Twitter to see how widespread the problem is. But no mention on http://my.virginmedia.com - why not? And now they're looking to increase prices again ..... to give us an "even better" service! They are indeed having a laugh, and all the way to the bank, at our expense.

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