Steal My Deal

Virgin Media and BT have always been stiff competitors - and where there is competition, fights for PR and criticisms of each other’s offerings are inevitable. For Virgin Media and BT, the present bone of contention is BT’s new promotional deal.

BT recently launched the plan, which is offering three months of free broadband service to its customers. After analyzing the service in detail, Virgin Media has come up with the following broadband comparison criticisms:

The farther one goes from the telephone exchange, the lower the speed of BT’s “up to” 8 Mbps service gets

The download limit imposed on customers is a mere 10GB

An 18-month compulsory contract comes with the three months of “free” Internet

Streaming speeds are throttled, robbing users of the ability to access services such as BBC’s iPlayer HD, which offer high-quality broadcasts over the Internet

As an alternative to BT’s service, Virgin Media puts across its own plan at a monthly £25. The company claims that this is an attractive option against the BT promotional plan as its speed of up to 10 Mbps stays constant regardless of distance from the telephone exchange, and there are no download limits (although subject to fair usage). Calls to numbers beginning with 01, 02 or 03 are free on the weekends and the plan is offered through a basic contract for twelve months, convenient for those who might for any reason wish to switch ISPs.