Virgin Media 3 for £30 (Phone, TV & Broadband) Broadband Bundle

Virgin Media Review | Review of Virgin Media 3 for £30 (Phone, TV & Broadband)

GIVEN that Virgin Media offer a playground of services including broadband, phone, TV and mobile, we love how they let you loose on their products like a fat kid at the Pick 'n' Mix and create a bundle package that suits you.

In this Virgin Media 3 for £30 package you can pay £30 a month and get broadband (size M) and phone (size M) and TV (size L).

Yes, this is Virgin's equivalent of Sky's much advertised £26 See, Speak & Surf package.

No line rental required

Remember though that for Sky you have to pay £11.75 a month line rental on top of that, making this Virgin Media package - which doesn't require line rental as it's cable - a whole lot cheaper by comparison.

So here you'll get Virgin Media's cable broadband speeds of up to 2Mb with no download limits.

You'll also benefit from the excellent security features of Virgin's PCguard security suite and a free modem.

£30 setup fee

Like all Virgin Media's cable packages, there is a one off £30 setup fee.

When you consider that this generally involves an engineer to visit your property and set you up, this is negligible and casts shame onto some of the ADSL providers who charge as much as £40 'connection fee' where no work on their part is required at all

Free weekend calls

The Virgin Media Size M phone package included in the bundle gives you free unlimited local and national calls at weekends.

The TV package for this Virgin Media bundle is the Size L package which includes over 90 channels including Virgin Central (Virgin's cool on-demand TV channel where you control what you want to watch, and when), Sky One (and other Sky channels), Discovery, UKTV Gold and Eurosport.

And for once, we can report that Virgin Media's once terrible customer service is reportedly good to excellent, with the troubled provider now clearly on top of the problems they inherited when they took over NTL last year.

Virgin Media has even been nominated Best Consumer ISP at this years internet 'Oscars', the 2008 ISPA Awards.

Free technical support

What's more, technical support to Virgin Media is now free (so long as you have a Virgin Media phone package as part of your bundle) or at worst an 0845 local rate number for non Virgin Media phone customers.

This is a massive improvement from the 25p per minute support costs which got everybody's backs up in the past.

Remember that you will need to be in Virgin's cable-supported area in order to get this package. This is checked live, online when you sign up for the package.

	Virgin Media 3 for £30 (Phone, TV & Broadband) is currently offering £50 off your first bill when you sign up online (normally £30 - offer ends soon!).

A little more detail

Broadband

			Special Note..	Any good?
Package Name:		Size: M	-
Connection Type:		Cable	-
Max Speed:		2Mb	-
Usage Limit:		Unlimited	Fair use policy applies
Hardware:		Modem	-
Anti-virus Protection:		Yes	Part of PCGuard package (which also includes Firewall, Pop-Up Blocker and Privacy Manager)
Firewall:		Yes	Part of PCGuard package (which also includes Anti-virus, Pop-Up Blocker and Privacy Manager)
E-mail Account:		Yes	Up to 15 email addresses
Webspace Provided:		Yes	55MB of webspace
Domain Included:		No	-
Backup Dialup:		Yes	0845 dial backup
Consoles Supported:		All major consoles supported	-

Home Phone

Package Name:		Size: M
UK Weekend Tariff:		Free to UK landlines
UK Evening Tariff:		3.25p per minute, with 7p connection charge
UK Peak Tariff:		4p per minute, with 7p connection charge
International Tariff:		Lower international rates with Talk International (£1.50 per month)

TV

Package Name:		Size: L
Included Channels:		Over 90 digital channels including Sky 1 and Disney Channel
Optional Channel Add-ons:		Add SkyMovies and/or Sky Sports for an additional monthly fee (from £19)
Video on Demand:		Free last week's TV + BBC iPlayer.
Pay Per View:		Music vids, films and live sports events
Record TV / TV Hard Drive:		Yes (requires £150 installation fee, and £5 p/m)
Hardware:
Extras:

Payment, Installation and Contract

Payment Method(s):		Direct Debit + Paperless Billing only (other payment methods incur a £5 charge + £1 for paper billing)
Activation Fee:		Free
Installation:		From £30
Minimum Contract:		12 months
Line Rental:		No line rental required
Support:		Free (from Virgin Media phone, otherwise 0845 local rate)

Actual User Ratings

At a Glance

Our Rating
Max Speed	2Mb
Usage Limit	Unlimited
Monthly Price	£30.00
Set Up Cost	£30.00
Min. Contract	12 months

	Bundle details:
	Phone: Unlimited weekend calls to UK landlines
	TV: Over 90 digital TV channels
	Mobile: Not included

	It is best suited for:
	Web users who want the full 'bundle' experience, with broadband, free phone (weekend calls only) and cable TV packages all under one roof.

Customer Reviews

Add your own review of Virgin Media broadband...

Remember, the customer reviews below are subjective (and are not the opinions of ChooseISP.co.uk).

Martin from London writes... 12/10/2007

"Signed up for Virgin Media XL Broadband 20Mb. I don't even get 1Mb most times, usually lower. The customer service is extremely poor and they are all based in India. There is no email based support, only 25p/min tech number."

Gareth Snow from Worthing writes... 03/10/2007

"We recently had broadband, telephone and also TV installed from Virgin Media and they were excellent. Really good value for money. Also we have Virgin Media's V+ service which is superb!"

S.J. from Manchester writes... 08/09/2007

"When Virgin Media was still Telewest it was great. Now the XL package is £37/month, with fair use policy introduced, the speeds are not consistent and the upload speed is ridiculous for todays isp's. The once free tech help is now 25p/min with 10p connection charge (to India!!). If I had a BT line I would try another broadband provider."

Jason Hines from Epsom writes... 12/08/2007

"So far so very good. I signed up to the VirginMedia 3 for £30 bundle in April and so far have been amazed. I had heard bad stories but took the risk as they offer a moneyback guarantee. Thankfully I never had to use it. I still find it amazing that I get all this for £30. Highly recommended."

Hazel Wykes from Birmingham writes... 11/08/2007

"We thought we'd give Virgin Media a try just to see how it compared but were so dissatified with it, that we changed back to BT. We are now on BT Total Broadband Option 3. Its top class, everything about it is excellent. It beats Virgin Media all round."