Virgin Media disputes BT money saving claims

Media, communications, and broadband giant Virgin Media has recently spoken out to dispute claims made by rival provider BT over how the new BT service could save consumers money compared to the Virgin broadband service.

The technology headlines have been filled this week with details of the new BT fibre based broadband rollout, which is set to launch in February and has been called the BT Infinity Broadband service. The cost of the service starts at just under twenty pounds, and the provider claims that users will be able to achieve speeds of up to 40Mbps with the new network, which is five times faster than the standard speed.

When commenting on the new service BT officials also claimed that users may be able to save over seven pounds a month on the new Infinity service compared to the XXL service that is offered by Virgin Media. However, officials from Virgin Media have said that this claim is not strictly true, and has cited a number of reasons for this.

Virgin Media has said that one of the main reasons why this claim is not strictly correct is because the service from BT has a 20GB download limit whereas with the Virgin service the service is unlimited. Another reason given by Virgin is that customers don’t have to take a phone line out with Virgin as they would have to on the BT package. Virgin also claims that the BT Infinity Broadband service will most likely be a minimum eighteen month contract whereas the Virgin one is just a twelve month contract.

An official from Virgin Media commented stating: “We’re not sure why people in the UK would want to wait for BT’s 40Mbps service which hasn’t launched yet, when they can already get Virgin Media’s great value 50Mbps service.”

Source – IT Pro Portal