Home phone News

Virgin Media revises phone call costs

Monday 21 September, 2009

By Becca Talbot - becca@consumerchoices.co.uk

Cable phone and broadband giant Virgin Media is decreasing its call connection charges on 1 October, but raising the cost of other calls.

Virgin Media (www.virginmedia.com), the UK’s largest cable home phone provider, is cutting the cost of calling a landline on 1 October 2009, following news that BT is increasing its call connection charges on the same day.

The cable giant’s call connection charge - a one-off charge applied to every phone call made, regardless of duration - is decreasing from 9.79p to 8.8p, while BT’s charge is rising from 8p to 9.05p.

But customers on Virgin Media’s size M phone package will have their call charges increased, from 5.39p a minute to 6.39p a minute every time they make a daytime or evening call.

Virgin Media said if customers’ call plans included daytime calls, such as the Talk Unlimited package, they didn’t need to worry about the increase. “You’ll continue to enjoy unlimited calls any time of the day or night,” it added.

As well as increasing it’s call charges for “out of package” calls, Virgin Media is also increasing its calls to 0845 numbers, from 6.85p per minute to 9.79p per minute. And the cost of calling directory enquiries number 118 707 will increase from 34.2p per call to 40p per call.

Simon Piper, business development manager at Homephonechoices.co.uk, said: “It’s great news that Virgin is cutting the cost of making a call, but disappointing that, like BT, it is also increasing its call charges - especially after Ofcom removed restrictions on BT because it deemed the market ‘more competitive’.”

Last week, telecommunications regulator Ofcom lifted a regulation placed on Britain’s biggest provider, BT, allowing it discount its prices for customers that sign up for its home phone, TV and broadband services.