Virgin Media to hike prices

Millions of Virgin Media customers will be hit by line rental, broadband and TV price rises next year.

The provider is upping standard landline rental from £13.90 a month to £14.99 from 1 February.

Its standalone broadband and TV packages will also rise in price, as well as some of its 'collection' bundles of different phone, TV and broadband services.

Other than the price of standard line rental, no other call costs are rising.

The vast majority of Virgin customers will be hit. It has around 4.2 million broadband, 4.2 million home phone and 3.8 million TV customers. Many of these will overlap.

Virgin has not supplied a breakdown of how much other prices are going up by, other than to say its 'collection' bundles are rising by between £1 and £7 a month.

Even this page on the Virgin Media site states prices will rise, but doesn't give any further information. It says it will write to customers to explain exactly how much more they will pay each.

Early exit

Virgin will allow customers to exit their contract early without penalty, due to the rise. They need to do so within 30 days of being notified, but before committing to another provider, remember that other firms' charges are rising too.

Sky is upping some prices on 1 December, with BT and TalkTalk to follow in January.

Regulator Ofcom is currently investigating whether price rises midway through a contract "are appropriate".

A Virgin Media spokeswoman says: "As part of our ongoing review of services, from 1 February 2013, we're making a few changes to our pricing.

"The changes affect new and existing customers, though anyone already on existing special offers will remain unaffected through the course of their agreed discount periods."

For more information see the Cheap Broadband guide and do a free broadband speed test to see what speeds you're averaging.

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