Home phone Providers

Virgin Media phone, broadband and TV bundles

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

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Virgin Media (www.virginmedia.com) has a range of call plans to suit all needs, and you can make considerable savings by bundling your Virgin Media TV and/or broadband service too. (Updated 24/12/09)

About Virgin Media

Virgin Media (www.virginmedia.com) is Britain’s biggest supplier of cable home communications and entertainment.

It was formed from several other national and regional cable companies, including NTL and Telewest, and is now the UK’s dominant provider of home cable services. Around 12.6 million households can access the Virgin Media service through a network which covers around 50% of the UK.

Virgin Media’s cable services are completely separate from BT’s network. So, if you want a cable landline, Virgin Media will need to install it. The good news though is that Virgin Media keeps the cost of line installation low - anywhere between free and around £30 - depending on what offers are available at any given time.

This means that as long as your area is served by Virgin Media, you can opt to go down the cable route on a relatively low-cost basis. You should check to see if you can get Virgin Media’s cable services in your area before signing up online.

What is Virgin Media home phone?

Virgin Media’s home phone service is provided by cables which run underground. The service starts at £11 a month for line rental.

It’s most basic call package is Talk Weekends, which includes free weekend calls when customers take their phone line rental and one other service from Virgin Media.

Virgin Media has two other standard call packages:

• Talk Evening and Weekends - Offers unlimited evening and weekend calls
• Talk Unlimited - Offers unlimited anytime calls

Why should I get Virgin Media home phone?

As well as it’s cheap line rental, Virgin Media also has three unique “minutes” call packages for its home phone called Talk Anywhere.

These are a little like having mobile minutes, but calls to landlines, mobiles and international numbers are all included in the minutes. There are three levels of minutes:

• Talk Anywhere 200 - £9 (plus line rental)
• Talk Anywhere 400 - £17 (plus line rental)
• Talk Anywhere 800 - £29 (plus line rental)

Calls to mobiles and overseas with Virgin Media home phone

Many people will get a Virgin Media home phone line in order to access its good TV and broadband services - more than 58% of its customers take the triple-play option - however it’s important you make sure you’re on the right package to suit your needs.

Calls made outside your inclusive package minutes can often work out quite expensive, such as calls to mobiles and international numbers.

To provide a better value service, Virgin Media has two package add-ons which will give you discounts on the more expensive parts of its phone service:

• Talk Mobile - Get 25% of calls to mobiles
• Talk International - Get international calls to any landline for 2.93p a minute.

Is Virgin Media right for me?

Virgin Media’s phone service is reliable and it makes sense to go for it if you also want Virgin Media’s fast broadband and/or Virgin’s multi-channel TV service. You can even get a low-cost mobile phone deal too, with a quad-play bundle.

As long as you pick the right calls package for you, costs are reasonable. But beware of phoning mobiles and international numbers outside your call package allowance.

The other thing to bear in mind is that if you want to move from Virgin Media’s cable home phone service back to a BT phone line, it will probably cost you the normal BT installation fee, currently £124.99.

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