MSE News: Virgin Media to hike prices

Helix

PanamaJack wrote: »

Re: Virgin Airlines
Used to be one of the cheapest long haul companies around. I was one of Branson's greatest fans, until he and his empire started to get greedy. Now, rather than his flights being at the top of the list when you do a search for flights, his are at the bottom, KLM, Continental, AA., are way cheaper.

Virgin Broadband
It went down the pan when Virgin bought NTL. The sales support is brilliant, but when you complain as to why your broadband service has gone up from £10 per month to £20 per month, they say this, "If you don't like it Mr. R*****, then I will cancel you account now. I left it only to discover 6 months down the line the the price had gone up to £22.50 per month. I called them and was told, " Prices will be going up just over 10% per year, do you want me to cancel your account?"

I have now had enough of this greedy empire and its greedy profiteering owners! Many friends of mine are absolutely disgusted with this company and many have left. The only thing I am grateful for is that Virgin continue to still send me loads of junk mail for all their services (which I requested), why? Because each envelope goes straight into the recycle bin and ups my points with the local council so that I can get discounts off shopping and the Plusnet internet service. So a message for Virgin," No thanks, I don't want your services anymore, and thanks for the junk mail".

Virgin didn't buy NTL, NTL bought Virgin Mobile and setup a licensing agreement to use the Virgin Name. Richard Branson has shares in the company as part of the deal but its not a true Virgin company as Branson doesn't own it.

fozmcfc

Penaz1 wrote: »

Any real justification or just another example of profiteering? Has the wholesale cost of sending signals down fibre optic cables risen?

It's more than just this though, there are numerous costs involved in running a business.

Staff wages, cost of utilities such as heating and lighting their call centres, increased petrol prices for their numerous vans, other supplies who produce their equipment such as routers increasing prices, the list goes on and on.

Of course, people do have a choice here to leave if they want. But of course the alternative is largely Sky and guess what they put prices up as well.

TBH, Sky and Virgin TV are luxury items and are very expensive, considering the amount of channels that contain absolute crud.

topaz1_2

Isn't it enough we are looking at increased energy bills, increased public transport costs etc? Everyone out there;s like vultures trying to grab our money. Life is already a struggle.

custardy

KAT78 wrote: »

!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW DO I ESCAPE THIS? UNDER CONTRACT FOR ANOTHER 6 MONTHS AND MY ON DEMAND HARDLY EVER WORKS!!!!


We wanted to let you know that, from 1st February 2013*, the price of your Virgin Media services will increase by £3.24 a month. It's never nice when prices go up but it means we can continue to give you the best home entertainment and services.

So that means your cost will rise about £10 all in?

custardy

its actually good timing for me.
I was planning on calling to see what deals they could do
so I'll key in the new prices

veryintrigued

They really do take the biscuit this lot. Another price rise? They only just had one in Feb this year.

All we have with them is their 'L' speed broadband which we are paying £18-50 per month - after negotiating a reduction in early this year (and after having our arm 'forced' to upgrade from S where we were paying £15-95 - but were happy with the speed).

Are there any other options out there for a household with no landline (and we don't need or want one) and are on long (cheap) mobile contracts.

Have we no other options apart from disconnection?

Regards in advance

custardy

veryintrigued wrote: »

They really do take the biscuit this lot. Another price rise? They only just had one in Feb this year.

All we have with them is their 'L' speed broadband which we are paying £18-50 per month - after negotiating a reduction in early this year (and after having our arm 'forced' to upgrade from S where we were paying £15-95 - but were happy with the speed).

Are there any other options out there for a household with no landline (and we don't need or want one) and are on long (cheap) mobile contracts.

Have we no other options apart from disconnection?

Regards in advance

well with no phone line,how would you get the BB?
your options are really limited to mobile broadband

macman

Helix wrote: »

Virgin didn't buy NTL, NTL bought Virgin Mobile and setup a licensing agreement to use the Virgin Name. Richard Branson has shares in the company as part of the deal but its not a true Virgin company as Branson doesn't own it.

Branson doesn't even sit on the board (nor indeed on the board of any of the myriad companies to whom he licences the Virgin brand). As you say, his whole business is built on a licensing and royalty system.

sghughes42

Helix wrote: »

Virgin didn't buy NTL, NTL bought Virgin Mobile and setup a licensing agreement to use the Virgin Name. Richard Branson has shares in the company as part of the deal but its not a true Virgin company as Branson doesn't own it.

Did they? That's not how I understood the situation when the change happened. AIUI NTL especially and Telewest to a degree were massively in debt and losing money hand over fist. You are probably right that it wasn't Richard specifically who bought them out, but I'm fairly sure NTL and Telewest were both bought by someone else and rebranded as Virgin Media.

Considering the debts the two had run up I'm not at all surprised the prices are high. Their pricing model differs from Sky - I've had the benefit of several new boxes and cable modems over the years I've been with them for instance, with Sky I'd have had to fork out for them. Also, I'd guess that a fixed network is probably more expensive to run than satellites - they will have a higher initial cost but the on-going costs will be lower.

Also, don't forget that a lot of what Virgin charge is dictated by their suppliers - they have to pay to carry the various channels they do. I must admit I wish they'd allow better choice of channels, I only watch a fraction of what I get (on M+) but there are one or two in the higher packages I'd happily pay a small amount extra for, or sacrifice many of my existing ones for.

I guess also a lot depends what you use it for. I gave up on the on demand service years back, I just use iPlayer and ITV Player now. Broadband has the odd hiccup but no worse than any other service I use. No issues with the phone other than the fact we pay for 0845 calls.

macman

NTL and Telewest merged, then very shortly after they merged again with Virgin Mobile, and it was then rebranded Virgin Media.