How to beat Virgin Media price increase: 5% hike from November 2017

Thursday, 3 August, 2017

Five million current Virgin Media broadband, TV and home phone customers are facing price rises of nearly 5% from November 2017.

Depending on your bundle with Virgin, you could see between £1.99 and £3.99 added to your monthly bill.

Some customers will see rises in excess of £48 a year starting from October, with all customers seeing price rises by November 2017.

The price hikes were announced on Tuesday 1 August on Virgin’s online Community Forum – Virgin says it has been sending out letters and emails to cable broadband and TV customers this week.

A spokesperson for the company blamed the rises on an increase in the number of customers streaming video and audio content.

We do everything we can to balance keeping our prices competitive while investing to meet the ever-increasing appetite for broadband and content.

Online usage increased by more than 35% in the last year and streaming now accounts for nearly 60% of the total traffic on Virgin Media’s network.

We’re investing more in our ultrafast network to continue offering the UK’s fastest widely-available speeds.

This all comes on top of must-see TV programming – from Virgin TV Exclusives to the only place where you can watch all of the live football action from both Sky and BT Sport in a single package.

- Spokesperson: Virgin Media

How to beat the hikes

If you’ve had enough of Virgin broadband now you know your prices will be going up by as much as £3.99 a month from November 2017, you can always switch for a better deal.

1. You can quit Virgin penalty-free within 30 days

Since 2014 Ofcom has given consumers and businesses the right to cancel their contract if they face unexpected mid-contract price rises.

If an ISP raises its prices while you’re still in contract with them – as Virgin has done here – you have the right to cancel and it won’t cost you anything.

All you need to do is contact Virgin with confirmation of the price rises. In this case that’ll be the letter or email you get from Virgin. You’ll also need to give them 30 days’ notice.

2. Switching to a better deal

See what our in-house reviewers think are the best value fast fibre broadband deals for summer 2017.

BroadbandDeals.co.uk scours the market daily for the best deals. You can also jump straight to our Home Broadband comparison page to quickly find the best deal for you.

Tom Rodgers author picture

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Tom is a tech journalist and former Editor at BroadbandDeals.co.uk.