Virgin Media has announced the size of its price rises due in April 2025 and unfortunately they have joined the ranks of BT, EE and others in the flat rate price rise being inflation busting.
For Virgin Media broadband customers this means rather than the old RPI+3.9% which was to have been based on the RPI figures released in February 2025 there is now a certainty that the monthly cost will increase by £3.50 in April 2025, irrespective of what speed of service you have. Social tariffs are an exemption as these exist to ensure that the poorest in society can be online and do all the things they need to do.
Virgin Media O2 also has lots of mobile customers and those plans will be increasing by £1.80 effective in April 2025.
The wording in the press release suggests that the £3.50 and £1.80 increases will apply every subsequent April, but we’d hope that the whole industry would consider the underlying economic environment rather than baking in several years of well above inflation price rises.
Virgin Media O2 suggests that the broadband price rise is not too bad at the equivalent of a takeaway coffee and also that broadband pricing is no more expensive than it was seven years ago for the most popular tariff.
While we welcome the simplicity of a £3.50 price rise, meaning people don’t have to dig out a calculator, we are pretty sure that people would rather the price rises be smaller. This is not aimed solely at Virgin Media as almost all those with an annual price formula have erred on the side of caution and are implementing above inflation price rises. Put another way an Ofcom policy pushed for by Which? while simpler is turning out worse for the public, the question is whether this fair and transparent pricing is worth paying more money for.
When we saw the news from Virgin Media O2 on Monday we looked at the Virgin Media product pages and those had not updated to show the new price rise formula and as of 10am on 12th November they are still telling people signing up that the “Monthly price of Virgin Media’s main services and O2 Airtime Plan will increase each April from April 2025 by the Retail Price Index rate of inflation announced in February each year plus 3.9%”. We presume that will update very quickly to reflect the new £3.50 and £1.50 figures otherwise there will be a few thousand confused new customers, and with Black Friday on its way we’d expect companies to be on top of their pricing messaging. We will keep an eye on the pricing footnotes to see how long the duality lasts.
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“the question is whether this fair and transparent pricing is worth paying more money for”
But we’re NOT getting fair and transparent pricing. The price paid over 2 years depends on exactly when you sign up, and you still have to get out the calculator to work it out. In this case, the average paid over 2 years is between £1.75 and £5.10 per month higher than the big bold headline (starting) price.
(3.50*12)/24 = £1.75
(3.50*11+7.00*12)/24 = £5.10
IMO, the *average* price should be displayed with equal prominence.
Contracts should have a fixed price with no increase.
Virgin quoted us £28/m for fttp. £3.50 is over 10% and in an 18m or 2yr contract it could be 25% higher. They must be joking.
And nobody can do anything about it because industry will do the same. We are buggered.