O2 UK Hikes Prices for Some 30 Day Pay Monthly SIM Only Customers UPDATE
Some customers of mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media), specifically those on certain 30 day rolling SIM Only contracts, have informed ISPreview of how they’ve just been notified that they will be hit by a sharp price hike from 1st October 2025 (in many cases this equates to an increase of c.12%).
The increase has also been confirmed by one of O2’s support agents on their Community Forum: “As part of a recent tariff review, we’re making a small adjustment to prices for customers on a specific set of 30-day rolling SIM Only plans. This change helps ensure greater consistency across our customer base and keeps our pricing in line with the wider market.”
The customer email itself (credits to forum member insertfloppydiskhere for sharing) states: “From 1 October 2025, the cost of your Airtime Plan will increase by £3 a month. Remember, this price rise is only for your Airtime Plan – what you’re paying for your device will stay the same.”
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The only good news is that, on a short 30-day plan, customers who wish to leave can easily do so without penalty.
UPDATE 31st Aug 2025 @ 07:42am
We’ve had a comment from O2, which also confirms that the price hike is only being applied to a small proportion of former Virgin Mobile (ceased to exist in 2023) customers who were migrated across to an O2 Unlimited plan in 2023, and is designed to align their products and services more closely with the wider mobile base. A few of these customers are currently said to be paying as little as £4 a month for Unlimited airtime plans.
A Virgin Media O2 spokesperson said:
“We have written to a small proportion of former Virgin Mobile customers, who migrated across to O2 in 2023, to inform them that the cost of their Unlimited airtime plan will increase by £3 a month from 1 October.
This will align these legacy packages more closely with the wider base of O2 customers, while also continuing to represent excellent value for connectivity that is in greater demand than ever before.
Impacted customers are able to exit their contracts without penalty if they wish.”
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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The MVNOs (Lebara etc) are usually a better bet for this type of contract anyway. I get the distinct feeling that unless they extract £20+ a month, the main networks don’t want to know you.
my o2 contract is after 1st oct £12 unlimited data text and calls which other provider supplies this.
@Paul thought I was the only one tbh with that good, I’m assuming you were on Virgin Mobile right? Yeah, right now on iD you can get £10 for unlimited everything on a 24 month contract if you don’t mind claiming cashback and I’m not sure if it’s still a thing (I haven’t been on ISPreview’s forums in a long while) but people used to get £6/month unlimited data only SIMs through 3 Business (which could easily be paired with a £2.95 SIM from Spusu for calls and texts).
If you know someone on Vodafone, I think they have a capped speed unlimited 4G plan (at least by the looks of it) for additional lines for £13 as far as I can tell.
That is what I like about sim only phones and then sim only monthly rolling contracts, easy to leave.
I pay £5 for 4GB, unlimited text and voice, does me fine. I still have around 3GB left by the month end. I must start using it more, to ge34t my money out of it. 🙂
They sent me an offer of 24GB for £7, not worth it for me.
But yes, putting prices up like that O2 will lose customers, maybe that is what they want, to get rid of all the high users, so they can charge low users more money.
fwiw my price rise is 32%, it’s currently unlimited data for £9.17. Probably will PAC out of O2 at this rate around Black Friday.
@Ad47uk: Hi, Would that be with Smarty by any chance, that’s if you don’t mind sharing on here.
@Fibre Scriber, yes it is Smarty, sadly Vodarubbish have grabbed hold of them as they have merged with Three, because our government and Ofcom are gutless to say no.
At the moment, it does what I need, for a price I will pay. They do keep trying to get me onto higher data packages are a slightly higher prices, which is fine if I was going to use it.
Things could change in the future, but for the moment, I will stay with Smarty.
@insertfloppydiskhere, that is why I will never go for a contract again for mobile phone/network. I prefer to buy a phone and use it until it gives up and pay for a monthly rolling contract.
I would love to do it with broadband, to be honest, but at least I got a 12-month contract for that.
I hate long contracts, 24 month ones that are being forced onto people these days is pathetic and to be honest, the government should step in ad ban them, but they won’t
02 signal is rubbish anyway near us.and the network shuts down when the diesel powered genertor mast runs out of fuel, usually once a week