Possible Hints of O2 Broadband Revival Surface via New UK Full Fibre Plans
One of ISPreview’s eagle-eyed readers recently spotted that mobile network operator O2 (Virgin Media) had uploaded an interesting new page on their website, which doesn’t appear to have been meant for public consumption and depicted three new full fibre (FTTP) broadband packages under the ‘O2 Broadband’ branding.
Seasoned industry observers will recall that O2 previously ran their own fixed broadband ISP, which reflected what they acquired from BE Unlimited some years earlier in 2006. But all that changed in March 2013 after Sky (Sky Broadband) agreed to buy their fixed broadband and phone business for upwards of £180m (here). At the time of the sale O2 had about 560,000 customers, which was down from a peak of 671,000 in 2010.
The situation changed again in May 2020 after Liberty Global (Virgin Media) and Telefonica (O2) reached a complementary 50-50 joint venture deal to merge their respective fixed broadband and mobile network businesses in the United Kingdom (here). The merger ultimately resulted in both providers working to offer a new range of mobile and broadband bundles (Volt packages), but O2 opted not to resell its own broadband packages.
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Fast-forward to last week and one of ISPreview’s readers (credits to Chris) accidentally spotted an interesting addition hidden within O2’s website (o2.co.uk/shop/o2-broadband), which made mention of an O2 Broadband service offering three full fibre packages – Classic 500 Full Fibre (£10 per month), Plus 1000 Full Fibre (£15) and Ultimate 2000 Full Fibre (£20). All on a short 12-month minimum contract term and applying O2’s latest pricing policies.
The section appeared to be a temporary holding page, not least because the “Choose this package” option and other parts didn’t function, while the proposed pricing looked unrealistic – or perhaps indicative of a trial product. The packages were not a million miles from the sort of trial pricing that giffgaff used before they fully launched their own Full Fibre packages using the VMO2 built nexfibre network last year.
At this point it’s hard to imagine O2 setting up a page as specific as this unless they actually had an ambition to launch such products, although the web page promptly vanished as soon as ISPreview queried it (they’re now redirecting it back to the VMO2 Volt package info. page). As you’d expect, the official line from VMO2 is carefully crafted to avoid either confirming or denying that they might have plans to launch such products in the future.
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A spokesperson for VMO2 told ISPreview:
“The page you’ve seen doesn’t reflect a commercial proposition, we regularly test and explore new products and features as part of ongoing development work.
We’ll keep you updated if we have anything to share.”
The move to launch such products, if it ever does come to pass, would of course reflect somewhat of a strategic shift in how VMO2 positions its branding and products. Such a change would also raise questions over how the existing Volt bundles between Virgin Media and O2 might be handled going forward, as well as perhaps causing some speculation over the future position of both brands more generally.
Regular readers will recall that Telefonica’s strategic review appeared to cause quite a bit of upheaval last year (here, here and here), although the recent move by nexfibre to acquire Netomnia for £2bn (here) appeared to indicate that the shared parentage was still firmly committed to working closely together. Time will tell.
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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I recall reading ISPR forum threads years ago regarding O2 broadband. I suspect this is NOT a competitor to Virgin Media (especially when you look at the packages which looks similar to VMs at a first glance with a different name). Instead, I think Virgin Media will eventually become O2 broadband. There’s still 10 years left on their branding agreement from what I can tell but they might be taking a slow approach to it.
Yes, there is still 10 years left on the Virgin Media branding agreement. The Virgin name in licenced until 2036 see Like a Virgin (https://citywire.com/funds-insider/news/like-a-virgin-what-ntl-wants-to-be-after-1-7-billion-virgin-mobile-deal/a272773)
NTL:Telewest’s takeover of Virgin Mobile completed on 4 July 2006, and on 8 November 2006 a 30-year exclusive branding agreement that saw NTL adopt the Virgin Media name after it completed its merger with Telewest was agreed with Branson. He receives around 0.25% of consumer revenues a year (£8.5 million per annum based on 2005 revenues) for the use of the Virgin brand name.
Apparently the can be cancelled with a one-year notice period.
Other sources suggest only Virgin Group can cancel the deal.
I suppose nothing precludes O2 from launching a broadband service, with Virgin customers inevitably migrated over if or when the deal expires or is cancelled.
Between this and Daisy being purchased and rebranded first as O2 Daisy and then O2 Business, I have a belief that Telefonica will buy out Liberty’s 50% stake in VMO2 and then cancel the licensing deal with Virgin Group, to then rebrand Virgin Media as O2.
This would be a great irony, because it means that BT will have spun-off a division that would go on to be their biggest challenger in the fixed broadband market as well as the mobile market.
I did theorise this before.
it makes sense. largely as they can compete head to head with BT.
BT has its own network in oepnreach
O2 will have its own network via Nexfibe (who will also acquire Netomnia)
Both will have TV offerings
Both will have landline offerings
Both will have mobile offerings.
except as it stands O2 would ahve the upper hand with the XGS-PON.
I wonder if this move will poke the bear (vodafone) into then attempting to buy out a network… (cityfibre perhaps?) who knows.
prices look really good.
Interesting if true, especially at those prices. Makes me wonder if they are considering having as many brands as possible reselling their core network as a reasonable strategy, the Giffgaff trial is quite telling on this, for the very small network area that can get it. Also a weird typo in the screenshot. It’s not mbps, it’s mpbs on their page.
I wish companies would stop having so many different brands. I am sure that some use it because their main brand name has a band name and they want to grab people who will not touch them with a barge pole.
I know people who did not realise that EE was BT until I told them.
Definitely a Virgin router in the picture, and the little tag has the O2 logo on it. Would they go to that much trouble if it wasn’t true!
Has someone woek up and realised they made a mistake? They ditched PN Mobile and bought Bt Mobile back – and now o2 broadband is coming back too?
What’s next genie? Screaming.net!
Seems clear that “whatever they wannado – they wannado broadband” remember that? 🙂
Still got the mid contract price increase in there to ramp it up and up every year.
The direction of travel on their business side should be enough of an indication what their future branding strategy will be. They don’t own the Virgin name, its natural for it to eventually follow the spanish setup and become a single entity under the one brand vertically and horizontally integrated (still allowing for wholly own operations like GiffGaff).
In the wholesale space they are already in the process of amalgamating all the current and old entities under the O2 Business legal name.
Who knows if it will support IPv6…
I suspect they’ll do a couple of things:
1) Buy-out the rest of the agreement with Virgin for the use of the name, with a suitable transition period (say one (1) year), then re-brand the lot to O2.
2) Once Netomnia is completed, hive off the rest of the fixed-infrastructure networking side (e.g. the current Virgin network including HFC) to nexfibre also, creating a sort-of ‘O2reach’ infrastructure provider, which they can also wholesale out (to help with competition concerns), leaving the rest as a pure-play service provider.
It’s a little more complex of course when it comes to the mobile infrastructure so I don’t see many changes there soon, but I’m sure they’ll look to simplify where they can. I also suspect one of the JV partners may be getting itchy feet, so this may also play into the mix.
It’s possible that they may also introduce O2 TV as part of nexfibre and/or O2/giffgaff infrastructure at some point in the future.
O2TV was filed for trademark on 10th January 2025 and registered on 4th April 2025 (due to expire 10th january 2035. https://trademarks.ipo.gov.uk/ipo-tmcase/page/Results/1/UK00004146222
There was also a Times article (June 7th 2025) suggesting that VMO2 were considering launching a streaming TV service.
https://archive.ph/2025.06.07-222125/https://www.thetimes.com/article/5bc0051e-4221-417e-b292-198c275de184
Given some of the coverage here and in the news about the appalling customer service, Virgin BB and O2 coverage, I’m surprised Mr B hasn’t pulled the plug himself. It will be tarnishing Virgin’s name. Given they are really just a brand licencing scheme, they surely have some SLA requirements for their licencees.
However, I guess if VMO2 don’t actually break any rules, start up-selling O2 BB put Virgin on the back burner, no one else would be able to re-licence the brand Virgin brand while they grow O2
highly doubt it’ll be this pricing, no link to the page so could ai for all we know does make sense though Virgin has such a bad rep, but o2 wont be any different, they use the same support and support/cusgtomer service is 100% the issue with Virgin, I’ll happily go to giffgaff or o2 if they fix it so you can transfer, last time I tried, it ddint work, even now it says I can’t get giffgaff.
@Martyn. No, it won’t be that pricing. As noted in the article, the link has been hidden / re-directed / removed by O2. It appears to have been simply a test page – not sure why you would think it is AI? What would ISPReview have to gain from making false allegations? The link existed, and now does not, but that doesn’t mean it was false.
@Justathought – they likely can’t “leave it on the back burner” as there’s very likely contract stipulations involved that they can’t launch broadband in their name without giving up the Virgin brand. I suspect a buy-out of the name is coming, and rebrand to O2, though when is a mystery.
That’s why they switched to the Virgin Media name in the first place but from day 1 they messed up.
Didn’t O2 drop all their broadband customers [in it] when they pulled out of the market just a few years 3?
They left the old pages related to O2 Broadband up for many years until recently actually but I’ve stumbled across the link before. They’ve probably found that not everyone is aware that Virgin Media and O2 is one company, it is designed to catch people looking for O2 Broadband and potentially stop them going elsewhere.
Wasn’t the Virgin brand licenced to NTL:Telewest for 20 years? If so, that time is up. Virgin Media as an active brand will be 20 years old next February.
So it is possible that they may rebrand everything as O2 just like they have done with Virgin Media Business.
O2 is a much more favourable brand but this is why they adopted the Virgin name in the first place when NTL rather than Telewest had a terrible reputation for customer service,it was also to be a stronger force to compete with Sky,BT,Tiscali and Wanadoo and Virgin Media was supposed to be a fresh start.
That was until Virgin Media immediately began self destructing, switching to foreign call centres was a smart move