Virgin Media UK Quietly Increases Standalone Broadband Prices
New subscribers who prefer to take one of Virgin Media’s standalone broadband packages, which remove the phone line rental in favour of a single price, should note that the standard cost has just increased. Meanwhile those who prefer bundles can now benefit from a 9 month discount instead of the previous 6.
As an example of the standalone package change, Virgin Media’s 50Mbps broadband package previously cost £28.50 per month and this has now risen to £30.25 (12 month contract). By comparison you can take the same 50Mbps service with a phone line for an overall total of £21.99 a month for 9 months and £34.49 thereafter.
The price difference isn’t huge, thanks to the new 9 month discount, although you can improve upon that by switching the monthly line rental (£16.99 per month) for annual pre-paid line rental (equivalent to £13.66 a month). After that the price effectively equates to £18.66 per month for 9 months and £31.16 thereafter.
But remember that the price of Virgin Media’s line rental will also go up again at some point in the near future, which should make standalone broadband seem even better value. Sadly standalone packages don’t tend to benefit from the discounts of Virgin’s other services, thus it usually takes a fair while before the full cost saving advantage takes hold.
Elsewhere Virgin Media’s existing price discounts have just been extended from 6 to 9 months, which for example means that their first Big Easy triple-play bundle of 50Mbps broadband, 60+ TV channels (inc. 10 HD channels), unlimited UK weekend calls and free SuperHub router now costs from £10 per month for the first 9 months and £22 a month thereafter (plus £16.99 a month line rental, unless you take the pre-paid option).
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on Twitter, Google+, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Robbing Peter to pay Paul. I pity anyone still suffering with this. I left them and went back to ADSL abut a year ago – never looked back!
Virgin Medis is one of the HELL OF NIGHTMARE WITH SPEED & PRICE
glad i’m not with virgin media, the large price hikes that are multiple times higher than inflation will fuel the growth of FTTC uptake.
Bargainous.
I’ll take two.
Seriously it’s not that bad when you factor in the extortionate and compulsory line rental component of a number of FTTC services.
As always, bitter comments left by embittered ex-customers.
I don’t know if I’m lucky but my cable connection here in Perth has always over-delivered in speed against what I’m paying for, since the Telewest era.
When I had 4Mbps (yes, 4) I’d get 5. Then 12 for 10, 23 for 20, 58 for 50.
I’m now on the Big Kahuna, with:
– Broadband XXL – nominally 150Mbps, consistently topping 165Mbps, soon to be doubled to 300 and I expect to get 325;
– Tivo and 2 other HD boxes with all channels (excluding the Sky Sport / Movies guff);
– One totally unused phone line with unlimited evening and weekend calls.
All in £72.50: try that with any other provider.
Interesting.
Very odd, too. The 4Mb was capped at 4.096Mb, the 10 at 10.24, the 20 at 20.48 and the 50 at 53. The speeds you describe are impossible unless there were faults with the capping system every time you reconnected or an issue with measurement.
The XXL is capped at 168 and the highest anyone else has reported in terms of download speeds is about 162.
Your XXL is not being doubled by default, you’ll have to agree new terms and conditions. You may hit 325 on the uplifted tier, though, as in trials it’s capped at 337.92.
I’m actually quite interested in how you’re measuring all this. Neither Telewest or Virgin Media started capping much above the speed customers paid for until the 50Mb product, and as I mentioned that carried 6% fluff. Would have needed over 20% to hit 58Mb on speed tests or downloads. They weren’t capping higher as the advertising regulations only compelled them to sell based on ‘goodput’ around the time of the 50Mb release.
“bitter comments left by embittered ex-customers”
That’s how you see it – I see it as someone who was made so by constant price hikes and slower evening speeds. I was on the BK bundle too a while ago.
I might not get 152mbps 24/7 and the rest for that price but what I DO get is..
80/20 24/7 (sync 79989/2000) for £30 a month WITH line rental
TOP Sky HD package with all channels (yes ALL – even the ones you pay more for)
2 Sky + 2TB HD boxes (both free)
extra SkyHD box for spare/guest room
Okay so I pay £73.49 for that a month (thanks to the 50% off for leaving VM) but I NEVER got more than 40mbps at any time in this area and in the evening less than 3 – so my experience is a thousand times BETTER now than it ever was with VM.
SkyGo = a million times better than VMA crap.
Not having to go through loops just to get signed in via VM logins is much better.
Sky aren’t based in India and give a crap.
So yes – I am an “embittered ex-customer” and you know something, I am GLAD to be!
£59 a month with Sky
Fibre Pro and I d/l at around 68mb as close to the cabinet
Entertainment Extra
Sky Go
HD
MultiRoom
Line rental with evening and weekend calls (legacy package)
Mine really isn’t bad at all
Jazmin – not bad at all. I have Multiroom and Sky Go Extra I didn’t add that earlier. I don’t have Sky FTTC but I might consider it for a backup someday. I like to have provider redundancy.