In a surprise move cable operator Virgin Media has announced that they’re culling their online Cloud storage, Webspace and SmartCall services from 28th April 2016. The loss of Virgin’s Cloud and SmartCall will come as a particular shock since they’ve only been available for the past 2-3 years.
As a quick recap. Virgin’s Cloud storage service, which is based on technology from F-Secure and offered several GigaBytes of online storage space to existing broadband customers, was officially introduced in March 2014 as a replacement for their old Online Backup solution (here).
Similarly the SmartCall product, which for example allows Smartphone (Android or iPhone) users with a Virgin Phone Line to use the unlimited calls from their talk plan on their mobile (so long as you have a WiFi internet connection), was only introduced at the end of 2013 after a long development process (here).
No clear reason for the closure has been given, although modern Internet calling apps / mobile contracts have made SmartCall less useful and there are also plenty of free online storage services around (e.g. Dropbox). So it’s possible that Virgin Media simply didn’t see enough of a gain from offering the services.
Virgin Media Cloud
It’s reassuring to have somewhere safe for all your digital valuables. So before we close Virgin Media Cloud on 28th April, we recommend downloading your family photos, videos and documents to a local device to make sure you don’t lose anything. This might take a few steps if you’ve got a lot of stuff. You won’t be able to upload anything to Virgin Media Cloud after this date.
If you’d like to back up your stuff again, why not try Dropbox? With 2GB of storage, Dropbox lets you back up all the stuff you currently have on Virgin Media Cloud, and even share big files.
Better still, it works on all your devices – seamlessly syncing your files between them. Plus, you’ll bag an extra 3GB of storage if you link the Dropbox app to your phone camera. And when you recommend Dropbox to your nearest and dearest, you’ll get a bonus 500MB for each referral.
For help downloading your stuff and setting up your Dropbox account, visit virginmedia.com/cloud (terms and conditions apply).
SmartCall
We’re planning to close SmartCall on 28th April when the contract with our technology partner ends. But don’t forget all those minutes you’ll still enjoy with your Virgin Media home phone – including unlimited landline calls and free calls to Virgin Mobile phones, 0870 numbers and our Directory Enquiries service.
For more details about SmartCall closing, head to virginmedia.com/smartcall
Elsewhere we’re not surprised to see Virgin Media closing their Webspace, particularly as it’s not a feature that they’ve ever done much to promote and most customers won’t have known how to use it. However its removal may cause disruption for a few subscribers and thus Virgin Media are offering 12 months of free hosting services with GoDaddy to those affected (saving £59.88 over one year); more details on that here.
Customers can expect to receive a letter about the changes over the next few days or weeks. But as usual the removal of these features does not mean that Virgin Media will be dropping their prices to compensate and indeed you can probably still expect the usual price hikes to be announced later this year.
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