Virgin Media reduces price of Gig1 to lowest ever

Gig1 broadband from Virgin Media offers average download speeds of 1130Mbps at peak times, and has just been reduced in price for new customers.

Those signing up to the plan from today will get the deal for its lowest ever price of just £42 per month, reduced from £45, and £62 when it was first launched.

Virgin Media say the deal will be available to new customers taking the broadband-only version of Gig1 until 2nd February 2024.

Credit: Sharaf Maksumov/Shutterstock.com

Discounted pricing

Gig1 broadband only from Virgin Media was until today priced at £45 per month, making it a competitively priced gigabit-capable broadband deal.

However, from today, new customers can sign up for the package for just £42 per month for 18 months, saving them £54 over the length of the 18-month minimum term contract.

It's also worth noting that while already expensive, the out of contract pricing of £73 per month has remained unchanged. Although Virgin Media will send end of contract notifications to customers nearing the end of their introductory periods with options for re-contracting.

The reduced pricing only applies to Gig1 broadband-only, with the broadband and phone package remaining at £58 per month.

Gig1 Volt broadband and phone also offers good value for money however, priced at £49.99 per month for 18 months, the package includes a 6GB O2 mobile SIM as well as a digital home phone line with free weekend calls, and other Volt benefits.

See the latest Virgin Media broadband deals.

Gigabit competition

The price of gigabit-capable broadband deals, like Gig1, is noticeably reducing in recent months, from average prices of around £50 - £60 when these deals first came onto the market.

Gig1 was initially priced at £62 for example, later falling to £60 and then being made available on special offers for just £45 per month.

Other providers are also making their gigabit deals more competitive, with Sky currently offering their Gigafast deal for just £42 per month, down from the usual price of £58.

Budget providers like Plusnet have bought cheap gigabit deals onto the market last year, with the launch of their Full Fibre 900 plan at just £41.99 per month.

These cheaper prices are undoubtedly an attempt to improve the take-up of faster services, with currently only 14% of customers on full fibre deals opting for the fastest 900Mb+ packages, according to Ofcom's Connected Nations 2023 report, with most customers opting for deals with download speeds between 100Mbps and 300Mbps.

Compare full fibre broadband in your area.

Annual price rises

Gig1's cheaper pricing comes just weeks before Virgin Media's annual price rise figures are released, with the Retail Price Index (RPI) rate they use due to be published on 14th February 2024.

Virgin Media moved their broadband and TV contracts onto an inflation-based annual price rise policy last year, and now increase prices by RPI + 3.9% for both in-contract and out of contract customers in April, bringing them in line with partner company O2.

Based on current figures we can expect annual price rises for Virgin Media and O2 to be around 9.1%, although RPI did decrease marginally by point one of a percentage point between December and January's figures, so it's possible it could be a little lower.

Virgin Media have come in for a fair amount of criticism for their adoption of RPI, with the Competitions and Market Authority (CMA) suggesting the use of RPI as an outdated inflation figure, now replaced by the Consumer Price Index (CPI), had in itself "[made] the contract term unfair", as using RPI has the "effect of increasing the amount of any increase above inflation" and consequently "undermines or removes completely the justification for it".

Which? also singled out the provider in August 2023 for its new price rise policy, however, Virgin Media refuted their claims, saying the consumer champion had "wilfully misrepresented" their pricing practices by selectively misinterpreting "widely used contractual terms".

However, whether providers use RPI or CPI increases may soon become a moot point, with Ofcom due to announce a final decision on their proposal to ban all inflation-linked price rises in Spring 2024.