O2 and Virgin Mobile UK Zero Rate Mobile Data on More Websites
Mobile operators O2 and Virgin Mobile (VMO2) have today announced that, as part of their measures to help tackle the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, they’ve expanded the number of websites and internet services that can be accessed without eating into your mobile broadband data allowance (i.e. zero rating).
At present, VMO2 already adopts zero-rating on various websites such as Citizens Advice, Money Advice Service and the debt charity, Step Change. But the operator has today decided to go further after its own research found that 64% of low-income households say they have worried about running out of data in the past 3 months, with 50% saying they could not afford to buy more if they ran out. Ofcom estimates that data poverty is an issue for around 2 million households in the UK.
Customers of both O2 and Virgin Mobile will thus now also be able to access the National Debtline, Business Debtline, Turn2us, Debt Advice Foundation and National Energy Action “without using any of their mobile data.” Naturally, this does not extend to Virgin Media’s fixed line broadband customers because all of those packages come with unlimited usage.
Gareth Turpin, Chief Commercial Officer at VMO2, said:
“We are committed to supporting all our customers and the communities we serve through the cost-of-living crisis. We’ve already put in place comprehensive support measures for those hit hardest, set up a foodbank for mobile data to tackle digital exclusion and provide our customers with great value services every day as we continue to keep the country connected.
Through further expanding our zero-rated list, we’re making sure all of our customers can easily access help and advice at a time when they may need it most.”
However, we should point out that zero rating such websites does have its flaws, such as the fact that it often doesn’t extend to cover any included content or videos from third-parties on those same services (e.g. watching an embedded YouTube video on one of the websites or loading remote JavaScript libraries etc.). The reason for this is that such content comes from different domains and servers from the one that has been zero-rated.
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 and Linkedin.
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This is a great move by VMO2 and I hope that other operators follow in zero rating these and other important sites.
Pointless PR/virtue signalling.
Picking one of those sites at random – “Debt Advice Foundation” – click the “Education” link, oh look, there’s a YouTube video embedded in the site. That will not be zero rated.
Anyone had any issues on the Virgin Mobile network recently? When my sim was transferred to the Vodafone network at the start of the year I noticed the signal was nowhere near as good as before. The last few weeks the 4g has been more or less unuseable, normally get around 1mbps. On the rare occasional I connected to 5G that seems ok, was getting 300mbps through that!
Do you mean transferred to O2? O2 have had massive capacity issues (likely due to the massive overselling of their network by themselves and their MVNOs) for a while, I left last year because I was fed up with having “full” 4G signal (as displayed by device) but nothing working in any area with people. Dropping back to 3G helped sometimes, and the few areas with 5G worked great. They let me leave my contract early without penalty.
Hi phoenix.
Virgin mobile users are being moved to Vodafone as part of the 5 year MVNO agreement.
This was arranged before Virgin agreed to take on o2.
They can’t move their MVNO to O2 till the agreement with EE and Vodafone ends.
It’s because you’ve been switched from EE do Vodafone, but I’ve noticed atrocious signal as well in my area. Occasionally having to put the phone into airplane and out just so it will gather a 1 bar signal even though Vodafone signal check online says my area has great 4G.
Virgin Media recently started moving (some?) customers to the O2 network:
https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/virgin-mobile-migrating-from-vodafone-to-o2.38423/
Yes, it used to be great a few years ago, but it went downhill after the transition, now barely any signal – and I think it uses up my battery faster as a result. I’m on an Oomoh Virgin Media linked SIM, but now looking at BT (which we’re switching to for fibre) or Plusnet, since both are on EE and have foreign “roam like home” included (Plusnet is a bit cheaper but only 30 day contracts so might change their terms).
I’ve just left O2 and joined EE on a more expensive contract with less data and benefits because the speed and signal were so bad it was unusable. I was previously with Virgin mobile for years and Thier service was good not the best but fair for the price, this was when Virgin were using Vodafones network.
The last four months on O2 I averaged about 3 or less Mbps. The last two weeks the best test I managed was .29 Mbps. I have about 20 or so saved screenshots for O2 and the first EE one I done is better than all of them combined for download speed.
When I looked into this while trying to get out of the contract the most likely cause is a combination of aged infrastructure, lower frequency bandwidths and capacity. The lower frequency is great for coverage as the help desk kept telling me there is coverage in the area but poor for capacity.
This will only get worse as Virgin are ending the Vodafone deal early and moving to O2s infrastructure this makes O2 by far the largest network from a customer base but puts too much pressure on an already creaking infrastructure.
I would avoid O2 / virgin until there is significant investment in better frequencies and refreshed infrastructure. They have overstretched by merging the two networks too early and can’t cope. There is a reason EE / BT contracts are more expensive than O2s it’s because they can actually provide the speeds advertised. I had a data allowance of 60Gb per month with O2 the most I use in four months was 3.5gb and it wasn’t through lack of trying I would just give up after the music, video or webpage failed to load or buffered for the 10th time.
Also the coverage for a city was spotty at best I would get voice mails or text sometimes hours after they were sent.
Just to be clear, they’re moving users from Vodafone to O2 already (EE » Vodafone » O2).
Ha – it’s funny reading about people claiming about full signal strength on O2 and no data throughput. Hasn’t been that the case since they had the exclusivity to launch the iPhone 3G in the UK in… 2008..?
Same reason I am going to EE now. O2 signal is completely ruined my last life
M8s, Portugal lost to UK in some things, but surpass in so many others.. Check the 3 major Internet providers (Vodafone, MEO, Nos) they all have a package that gives free data to “Twitch, YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger, etc, etc”. The ultra fast home Internet speed start on the 120MBs, there is places in some city’s that have Vodafone Fibre at 1GBs. On Internet speed related, UK have a whole world to learn about.
VOXI (Vodafone) do that in the UK.
Not a fan of it personally, not really good for net neutrality promoting big-tech sites/services over others.
To clarify customers are already on voda, they were moved from EE to voda as part of new agreement and now everyone being moved to o2 since VMo2 merger. People seen to get confused as to network used. Noone still on EE and all being transitioned to o2. Which may mean poor 4G depending on congestion in your area.