Virgin media take over of Upp

Ian_Leckenby

I have just been advised that my existing contract which was with Upp to run to April 2025 is having a new condition added that allows them to cease my services within a 30 day notice period. They then go on to tell me to start a new contract with them!  Can they really do This without any form of compensation? The Upp contract was fixed at £30 for the 24months 500Mb upload & download. Virgin put theirs up annually (13.9% last year) and want far more for a lower service than I have... Confused & somewhat grumpy

iniltous

Never heard of Upp , presumably an Alternative Network ( Alt Net ) offering FTTP .

Many Alt Nets   ‘game plan’ wasn’t  to be around for long time , their aim from the outset was  to be swallowed up by a bigger player, this consolidation of small networks being absorbed by larger ones is in its infancy now but is accelerating and ultimately will end up with 3-4 major players at most, VM and Openreach being two of them ( although OR probably won’t buy out competitors like VM do )

TBH , what’s happening here was predicted, many of these Alt Nets are financed by ‘Hedge Funds’ and other financial speculators, no doubt the ‘backers’ of Upp are keen to cash in on their investment .

If they change the T&C’s to your detriment, you can leave , the fact they can give you 30 days notice isn’t earth shattering it’s a standard condition of service, and TBH if they went bust ( and some Alt Nets will fail ) you would simply be disconnected , FWIW, any company can basically say ‘we don’t want you as a customer anymore , here is 30 days notice to make alternate arrangements’  if they wanted to .

If VM maintained the Upp T&C’s you wouldn’t be disadvantaged so nothing but the ultimate ownership of Upp would change , but presumably VM don’t want to do this , hence the notification of the changes , and your period to decide, accept the change or leave.

Upp are basically giving you 30 days to decide to remain a customer under Virgin ownership, accepting VM’s  T&C’s , or quit  and use someone else , what you won’t be able to do is continue as you are.

Greatgimp

Upp was a Russian backed company that was ordered to sell it.

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2022/dec/20/uk-orders-sale-broadband-firm-upp-letterone-l1

Ian_Leckenby

Yes and Virgin snapped them up as their fibre ( which I had) has been here for years and they were taking lots of VMs customers. Virgin have said I can have a 350Mb connection for c. £87 a month 🤪

Turns out that VM are just going to dump the service "at some point" I checked with Outreach to see if they would be taking over the infrastructure (I.e.my new cable from house to post  to cabinet connections etc.) But it appears VM do not want to offer it to them and will just dump it, but not remove the cabling.
 If I have to get broadband from an alternative source they will have to install a new line and then if Ultrafast arrives (due Oct 24) I will get a third cable, and probably another hole in my wall for the cable.

It has to be said that EE have been very good and said that installation would be free for Superfast and again for Ultrafast as soon  as available if I go with them. You also get all your mobile phone SIMS on unlimited data at £10 each, so a no brainer as I support 4 phones at the moment from £12-£54 each

Just hope I can stay as is until Openreach get here 😃

batchrhodes71

I have just had a call from Virgin advising that they are cutting off my Upp broadband at the end of May and offered me their 500Mps package at £35.00 per month.  I told them as they had taken over Upp they would need to honour that contract and charge me just £30.00 until Oct 25.  Guy said he will call me back when he has spoken to his manager.  Like yourself they sent me an email advising they were changing my terms and conditions but I did not accept this and still have my original T&Cs.  If I tried to leave Virgin just giving them 30 days notice they would charge me liquidated damages, contracts work both ways and if they breach my contract which does not say they can give me 30 days notice I will take them to court.  

iniltous

You could try that , but the usual way these things work is you are offered the new terms , if you reject them you can leave penalty free , getting VM to honour the previous UP terms when they were agreed with UP , and not VM , may be expensive to argue in court with no guarantee of success, the OP was given 30 days to decide in January, presumably this is a rolling scheme as your notice is months later , if it were also January then the 30 days would have expired and you wouldn’t have the choice to quit penalty free