Virgin Media Hits UK Broadband and Mobile Users with Price Hike
Customers of broadband ISP Virgin Media UK, including those on Virgin Mobile, are starting to receive a new notification that informs them of a forthcoming price hike to their fixed line broadband, phone, TV and or mobile services, which for example will see the average price of their cable services increase by £4.70 from March 2022.
The move was somewhat expected as the operator announced a similar increase at exactly the same time last year (here), although the 2021 rise on their cable broadband packages came to a more modest average of £3.63 extra per month. The good news is that “Vulnerable” customers – including those on their Essential Broadband package for people receiving Universal Credit, as well as Talk Protected landline customers – will not see their prices change.
As for their Virgin Mobile customers, the operator is writing to advise them of a change to T&Cs outlining an annual price change based on the January rate of RPI + 3.9%, effective each April. We suspect that will not go down well as the RPI rate of inflation is already well above CPI, although both have surged in recent months, with the November 2021 rate of RPI (as published in December) hitting 7.1%! We warned about this last month (here).
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The fact that this year’s increase is so much bigger should, sadly, not come as a great surprise. The rising rate of inflation, big increases in data usage and service delivery costs, such as electricity, have in some cases hit network operators just as much as ordinary consumers. Inevitably, those increases would end up being passed on to consumers at some point. No doubt Virgin would also point to their gigabit-upgrades, router upgrade schemes and FTTP rollout plans as other factors.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said:
“While we recognise a price change is never welcome, with rising costs and our customers using their services more than ever, we are reviewing our pricing to fuel further investment in our network and services, both now and in the future.
We’re committed to providing brilliant services and excellent overall value, and consistently give our customers more for their money than anyone else.”
Ofcom does have a rule against mid-contract price hikes that go above-inflation (this probably won’t apply to the RPI hikes on mobile, once introduced), which means that existing customers may be able to exit their contract penalty free (you need to do this within 30 days of receiving Virgin’s formal notification letter/email).
Just remember that other major ISPs will also be increasing their prices in 2022, although some of this is often mitigated by special offers when you switch provider. Alternatively, customers could try contacting the operator directly and haggling for a lower price (Retentions – Tips for Cutting Your Broadband Bill).
Just to be clear, today’s announcement has no impact on O2’s mobile base, it’s purely for the Virgin Media side of the business.
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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 X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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An expected yet unwelcome increase. I’m in the process of leaving Virgin for their pricing; their product service in my experience is very good but it’s now unaffordable when I’d rather have a slower but cheaper 4G service. Admittedly it won’t be for everyone but money talks. This strategy of ever increasing bills by RPI plus a further amount is not really ethical when RPI includes basket costs that are not reflecting a broadband provider’s costs. Yes, they will have energy costs but the company has no food bills for instance so they are really only increasing prices because… Well, because they can.
The company is also increasing speeds but do the majority of people need it? Plus the gigabit increase was achieved with minimal comparative infrastructure costs by upgrading DOCSIS.
The structure of price increases across the sector must surely be in Ofcom’s sights, or are we suffering from weak industry regulation?
Ofcom actually regulate do they? News to me, and there I was thinking they were a champion of the consumer!
Moreover, @Steve, RPI is statistically faulty. It’s no longer a National Statistic.
Due to using the wrong averages, RPI almost always produces numbers higher than better measures of consumer inflation, like CPIH.
We don’t have virgin here, but the prices look ok for normal broadband compared to other, i presume that £4.70 a month rise is for the whole package.
The main problem with virgin it seems is that the price difference between just broadband and getting everything is pretty small. I would not want everything, just broadband.
Well, I have got Plusnet for 18 months now, so will see how the new fibre network here will be like by then
There are deals to be had out there. Ones that Virgin don’t offer on their website. Check out the comparison sites.
@Buggerlugz, I can’t get virgin here, so not really worth me looking at comparison sites, but when you say deals, do you mean just broadband, broadband with the other stuff, or both?
If I could get virgin, the TV package would be useless for me as I can’t legally watch live TV.
I pay £200 a month for 500meg internet (Not in the uk) its perfect, reliable through a monopoly. would i like it for £40.00 that you guys want to pay of course I would. but then I would have average internet with average service. There is a middle ground, but I do resent it when people complain about poor internet service, and then the prices they pay which are some of the cheapest in the world. Prices have to go up as the people who read this site, work in IT and our salaries have gone up. Along with new upgrades that should have been done years ago, Its clear the price needs to be around 50-60 for pure internet to make a return and continue investment.
Well you are LUCKY to not live in UK, where BT has a big stranglehold, causing no real competition, and a gov that has no clue to care…
It wouldn’t considering the huge number of shareholders in MP’s ranks.
Wasn’t aware there was more than one UK but given this one has about 60% of the population covered by an alternative network and an incumbent with one of the lowest retail market shares anywhere jon can’t be talking about the one off the coast of France / Netherlands.
If you’re paying into a pension you indirectly own shares. The UK telecomms market is currently working the best it has ever. Billions flowing in to further increase competition.
Some of the country just can’t support competing infrastructures. There has to be a provider of infrastructure of last resort and it’s BT / Openreach.
can I use this to get out of my contract? I’ve got 12 months of an 18 month contract left and they’ve been terrible. I don’t get the speed I pay for and it goes down often. When I contacted VM about this they said oh here’s £1 compensation (not kidding).
So if they’re bumping up the price, I want out. You can leave if they put the price up right?
Only if you’re hit by the increase.
RPI price increase usually excludes reason for bypassing your contract end date
You don’t want a hub 5 there issues with them
well you will have to ask VM, or leave and get any other, but note they will also being increasing prices soon!!
@Lexx Virginmedia gives everyone who is impacted by a price increase the right to cancel their contact penalty free
I presume you mean you’re not in a VM area?
Because all of their network can do it now. If they provided a solid service I would go for it but they don’t. They’ve been congested here since the start of the pandemic. They also flat out refused to give me a hub5 so if they won’t do that I’m not taking it either.
While we recognise a price change is never welcome, neither is losing a customer.
I hope those on fixed long term contracts are not affected by this.
It costs more money to get new customers than keeping them, this is why providers give deal to older customers, even if sometimes they are not as good as new customers. Plusnet gave me a good deal for another 18 months, that is as good as new customers, so I am ok.
told you virgin will rip you off every time that put up price hike next thing will be for 1 gbps instead of £62 it will be now £100
Rip off screw you virgin o2
Yes I am trolling virgin media gullible customers I left them greedy clowns of a company as I found faster service for less ££££
Well Gig1 is price locked at 24 months so if you’re only paying £62 Gig1 solo you’re going to be on hat for 24 months.
aqx
Well Gig1 is price locked at 24 months so if you’re only paying £62 Gig1 solo you’re going to be on hat for 24 months.
Just greed in my opinion 5g homebroadband is £30 a month on 24 months
Greed for a service of which has a guarantee unlike mobile broadband? I don’t have 5G in my area but can get VM 1Gb, mobile and cable broadband are two different products entirely, plus on this side, an Opensignal study showed average speeds of 131Mbps on 5G but this didn’t specify if it was outside or at home so it’s not a conclusive result. As of right now (16:39GMT) on a SamKnows speedtest on my VM Hub 4 I receive the full 1144Mbps and my system gets 947. For £62 I’m more than happy with this considering the next in my area by BT is £28.99 for 21-36Mbps with a guarantee of 17Mbps whilst my VM is around 560 guarantee.
EE are being utmost generous to provide me £35 a month for a 4G plan with a whopping 100GB data per month which will see me increase RPI +3.9%.
Vodafone offering £15 for 7 months before that increases to £30 with a £100 upfront fee with a 24 month contract which works me at 4.16 extra combined, making it 19.16 per month or 34.16 after 7 months, also with 100GB data and the usual RPI +3.9%
Three as per offering half price 6 months before increasing to 22 a month, 0 upfront and unlimited data for 24 months, which of course every April will see my billing increase.
I could go on but you get the point, £62 for what you get is actually quite good considering all the costs behind the scenes.
AQX That’s your deluded opinion virgin gr8 but it’s not take off your blinkers ffs
Virgin isn’t great by any means, but their service for me personally has been nothing short of great regardless of the houses I’ve lived in and speed of broadband I have. Been a customer 26 years so far, like every other company there will always be issues and people with them
Well that’s OK for you, but I have no choice, it’s either virgin or getting it through the phone line which iv tried and don’t even get 1meg.so not every vm customers are just gullible, some don’t have a choice?
Peter Smith
Can you get 5g in your postcode if you can buy a 5g router outright and get a sim only data saves you pounds ££££ instead of getting ripped off by money grabbing virgin media
@Joe Cal – are you getting 1Gbps with your 5G hardware? What is your latency like?
Despite relatively good 5G coverage here, 600Mbps or so seems to be the maximum, reducing considerably at busier times of day, and the latency is about double that of Virgin Media – which is saying something given that DOCSIS is generally a poor performer by that metric!
I’ll believe that you can get comparable 1Gbps service with similar latency and reliability when I see it!
John
Yes I am as I live next to a 5g mast couple of 100 meters away not many people in my street live next to me and the lag Is 1 ms so quite low .
Paying £30 for 5g sim and 5g router is £400 outright Amazon at lot cheaper than virgin media
Just had the annual price increase email which will be going up £5.75 a month.
Also mentions I can cancel if I’m not happy.
Bet you’re over the moon gaz.
I would suggest that, if you’re affected by the price increase, you should ring Virgin Media, tell them you don’t want to pay the increase, and ask if they can do you a deal. Don’t accept the 6 month price freeze they often offer. The best deals are provided by Customer Retentions – you don’t always need to threaten to leave to speak to the Retentions team (or you could say you’re looking at other providers). Provided I’m happy to sign a new contract, Virgin Media usually offer me a good price when I phone them, sometimes better than I’m already paying, but always a lot less than the planned increase.
The problem comes when retentions give you a great deal and then they reneg on it, still putting it up at the next increase. Been there got the t-shirt.
Money printer go brr has consequences.
Pandemic squeezing production and supply chains has consequences. As does QE. As does instability with trading relationships.
Much of this seems to be cost-push. Currency hasn’t significantly devalued so hard to blame QE.
If you mean greedy companies putting prices up and posting record profits, despite not putting wages up, while whining there are staff shortages, yes it apparently does.
VM are making record profits, huh?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/290081/virgin-media-inc-net-income/
@anonymous that’s 18-20, didn’t they not recently publish their 21 metrics?
Don’t want hub 5 issues with them
RPI+3.9%, is currently 11%.
Imagine if I got an 11% payrise!
This country is in for some pain in the next few years.
Price increases above inflation should be outlawed.
Hah, 11% pay rise would be the days. Last I heard from a relative who worked at VM during the pandemic is that they were given Just Eat vouchers up to £20 as a “thank you” which I found rather interesting
“Price increases above inflation should be outlawed.”
When the government invents lower figures regarding inflation that just doesn’t work.
Maybe we should just return to the 80’s and 90’s when companies actually invested in their staff and didn’t just soak up the profits without investing back into the company? Now theres an idea!
Just QUIT VM
Just quit trolling on here. It’s pathetic.
Nope I’m going to continue trolling virgin media and it’s gullible customers
Might want to take a break and learn English.
Had an e-mail from virgin media yesterday saying my bill will increase by £5.75 from 1st March. Guess i’ll have to get onto the phone with them to see if anything can be done to reduce or completely remove the increase. If not then i may consider switching to community fibre as they’re in my area now and have a 1gb fibre deal for £25 a month.
Are these price increases grounds for leaving virgin without penalty if you’re still in contract?
Yes.
Work harder do some extra shifts virgin needs money to upgrade the network 1gps doesn’t come cheap
It kind of did considering Docsis.
Considering how long the upgrade to DOCsys is taking them, I’m not buying it.
ONLY Mugs join virgin or bt I pay 3 mobile 13 pounds that with unlimited data with my 5G router I get speeds 700 Meg DL and 35 Meg upload carry on paying
Good for you. My Three signal isn’t very good so I’ll have to stick with FTTP.
Hope it lasts for you Sarah. Not one bit confident that it will.
Moan moan The British people do 4G routers can be had for under 50 pounds and 5g routers can be had for under 300 quids smarty, three, superdrug, Asda, voxi, Vodafone, o2 and EE all do unlimited data why pay 61 pounds for 1gbps fibre broadband you can pay as little as 15 pounds that what I do with smarty 15 pounds black Friday deal….bring on 5G smarty this early 2022 time to take on virgin and bt
If 4g or 5g was a viable alternative to a cable to your house I’d agree. sadly it isn’t by a long chalk.
I just laugh at the users calling people mugs for joining VM or having fttp instead of 5G.
The thing they seem to not consider not even one live on a area with 5G or even decent 4G just because they can get everyone else are mugs for not using it.
In my area the option is fttc or VM, the speed on 4G in my area is EE around 10Mbps 02/Vodafone around 6-7Mbps Three under 1 Mbps no 5G in my area, at home on VM I get 650Mbp.
So in my area I got no real option its VM or crap 4G.
I just laugh at the users calling people mugs for joining VM or having fttp instead of 5G.
The thing they seem to not consider not even one live on a area with 5G or even decent 4G just because they can get everyone else are mugs for not using it.
In my area the option is fttc or VM, the speed on 4G in my area is EE around 10Mbps 02/Vodafone around 6-7Mbps Three under 1 Mbps no 5G in my area, at home on VM I get 650Mbp.
So in my area I got no real option its VM or crap 4G.
^^^ your a mug paying £62 for virgin rubbish service and crap router for 1 measly gig .
I just laugh at people like you paying £62 a month for 1 gigabit virgin media . 5g is the future pal in years to come 5g speeds will catch up with virgin media speeds for less than £30 .you mug
I don’t pay VM £62, the point I was trying to make other user calling people that uses VM mugs since they got cheaper 5G the issue is not everyone who is served by Virgin media also got 5G.
That might be a suitable alternative to Virgin media in area where you can get 5G, where I live the choice is fttc due to long line the speed is sub 15Mbps or 10Mbps on a good day on 4G or 650Mbps on VM.
If I could get 5G at home I would considerate it but I don’t so VM is my choice based on the crappy alternative options for me.
Well said Ryan, the BT/Virgin Monopoly means we don’t have the luxury. Add to that the p-poor implementation of 4g then 5g and you end up with certain areas having good quality coverage and others with very little, patchy coverage with low speeds.
Its a lottery. Personally I’m happy paying Virgin £21 a month for 100Mb, but if they increase 1pence I’ll be really upset having to leave and make do with unreliable mobile internet ever again.
The more people whoe get 5G in your area, the slower it will become. The airwaves have dramatically less capacity than cables that run to your house. You won’t be laughing long. And if you’re a gamer you’ll be crying. Latency matters.
Oh well, I’ll just switch away to another provider with a lower price and the best cashback rate, without penalty, so double win for me.
@Aaron smith I’ve no idea where you’re getting your pricing from, but I pay £64.38 for 1 gig internet, Maxit TV including sky sports, bt sports and movies, two tivo boxes and Talk More Anytime. If you’re going to compare services, at least use the correct pricing.
@jason999 he gets his pricing from the broadband only price. 1Gig is £62 then with a phone it’s £64. You got luck that with upgrading a discount stayed as that package you have is £70+
Virgin 1Gig1 Fibre broadband £62 18month not including CPI and price increase only or Volt M500 Fibre broadband£50.99 only mugs pay this sort of price I know someone pays over £135 a month including sky sports etc etc hardly at home probably spends 2 hrs max at night on Netflix due to work commitments…..
I Only pay £14.54 3 mobile unlimited data sim in my huawei 5G router with speeds over 654mb over 5G network…… What a bargain you must be mad to pay virgin or anything to bt both companies are like British gas and Scottish Power only idiots use them because of the name and brand this why they always increase their prices each year….. About time these mugs vote with their wallet and cancel the service enough is enough I left virgin in 2015 due to my price increase every year sick to death of it..
Virgin media contacted me this week via phone saying would you like to rejoin virgin.
I told them offer me 12 pounds 100meg broadband only no price increase for 18 months they said cannot do this.
Virgin prices should be
100meg £12
200meg £15
350meg £18
500meg £22
1gig1 fibre £28
You’re like the few others that comment like “only idiots use them” or mugs.
Good for you for getting 654mb on Three for a under £15, but fortunately with this country piss poo rollout of 4G or 5G a great majority of can’t get that kind of speed, quite a number of users including me are only on VM simply because the attentive like mobile internet just isn’t suitable due to crap roll out in certain areas.
I guess repeatedly ranting about Virgin Media with various aliases and across various news articles on this website is one way to spend the one life you have.
Still with this much salt you’ll have no trouble seasoning the chip on your shoulder.
Got the email today, it’s a £8.50 raise but it won’t affect me while I have a discount:
Our prices are going up from 1st March 2022.
However, your prices won’t change until your offer ends
Dear Mr XXXXXX,
We know a price rise is never welcome, but it’s essential we continue investing in our technology.
Our price increase won’t affect you until your fixed-price offer ends
From then, you’ll start paying the full price for your package, and this will be going up by £8.50 a month. If you’d like to check when your fixed-price offer ends, please refer to your bill.
If you want to, you can change or cancel your package at any time before 15/02/2022, without paying any cancellation fees. Visit virginmedia.com/pricechange1 to find out more.