Groundbreaking offer to save families hundreds each year on mobile calls

Launching on 1st April, Virgin Media will become the first phone provider in the UK to offer new and existing customers free home phone to mobile calls. In a pioneering move designed to give its customers even better value, over four million Virgin Phone customers will be able to call Virgin Mobile customers without charge, demonstrating unbeatable value and giving families and frequent callers a chance to save hundreds on call charges to mobiles each year.

The new initiative, which comes as part of a variety of unlimited calls packages on all Virgin Phone tariffs, is designed to give customers a worry-free way of keeping families connected, and friends in touch with loved ones. With over £1.6 billion spent on calls each year from fixed line to mobiles in the UK, this groundbreaking offer will give Virgin Media home phone customers an unbeatable way to save with unlimited calls to Virgin mobiles, added to the unlimited voice calls to UK landlines already included in their packages.

The move reflects Virgin Media’s focus on innovating in the mobile market and giving its customers more. With ten per cent of Virgin Media customers subscribing to 'quadplay' or four services, nearly half a million customers will be able to benefit immediately from free calls from their Virgin Phones to their Virgin Mobiles in addition to the free Virgin Mobile to Virgin Mobile calls they already benefit from. Alongside this, more than 4 million home phone customers will be able to make free calls to anyone with a Virgin Mobile phone.

Graeme Oxby, executive director of mobile and telephony at Virgin Media said: “At a time when other providers seem keen on giving their customers less from their phone service, we are extremely proud to be leading the way in this field, being the first to offer free home phone to mobile calls. Our successful quadplay strategy has demonstrated customers are looking for exceptional value by bundling more services together, and this move to include free calls to mobiles with our home phone service underlines our commitment to ensure Virgin Media customers get the best deals possible.”

For more information on Virgin Media products and services visit: http://www.virginmedia.com/.

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Media Contacts:

Aviva Waks, 020 7404 3000, aviva@borkowski.co.uk
Emily Young, 020 7404 3000, emily@borkowski.co.uk
Asam Ahmad, 020 7299 5707, asam.ahmad@virginmedia.co.uk

Notes
1 Zero-rated tariff applies to the first hour of direct-dialled local and national geographic voice calls only (numbers beginning 01, 02 or 03) starting within the Talk Plan specified periods. From 1st April, calls to active Virgin Mobile numbers made within the Talk Plan specified periods will also benefit from zero-rating. As with landline calls, users should re-dial before 60 mins to avoid call charges. To be “active”, the Virgin Mobile number called must have originated a chargeable outbound event (call, sms , data session) within the previous 90 days. If a Virgin Mobile number that is roaming overseas is called, that number will still be charged any applicable roaming tariff, even though the landline part of the call may be free.

 

About the tariffs

From April 1:

About Virgin Media

With almost 10 million customers, Virgin Media is the UK's first quad-play provider of broadband, TV, phone and mobile.

The company is one of the largest residential broadband providers in the UK, using a unique fibre optic cable network to deliver next generation ultrafast internet access of up to 50Mb to just over half of all homes. Combined with a high speed ADSL service and mobile broadband products, Virgin Media is able to offer broadband internet access to virtually the entire country.

Virgin Media has the UK’s most advanced TV on demand service and is the only TV platform to carry BBC iPlayer. It is the second largest provider of pay TV, was the first to launch a high definition TV service and offers a high-specification, HD-ready V+ personal video recorder.

The company operates the most popular virtual mobile network in the UK which, when launched, was the world’s first such mobile phone service. It is also one of the largest fixed-line home phone providers in the country.

Virgin Media also owns Virgin Media Television (VMtv) which runs seven entertainment channels, including Virgin1, LIVING, Bravo and Challenge. VMtv is a 50 per cent joint partner with BBC Worldwide in UKTV, which consists of ten channels including Dave, G.O.L.D., Watch and Alibi.

Virgin Media Inc. is listed on the NASDAQ Stock Market and the London Stock Exchange (VMED).

 

This is an incredible turn up for the books. Although Virgin Media seem to be holding back on free 0870 and 0845 numbers, scraping call charges from Landline to Mobiles is a big move!

It says about free VM Mobile to Mobile calls... not something I've come across before, but if it's true then a family keeping track of each other, or even in a business scenario, this could save huge amounts of money.

Rich