Virgin Media adds 200% to its new broadband contracts in 2020, slips back in black (just)
- Reference: 1613495440
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/02/16/virgin_media_2020/
- Source link:
[1]PDF
growth in its broadband and contract mobile business units during 2020.With the nation sternly instructed to remain home, the TV and telecoms provider said it saw the number of new home broadband subscribers rise by 200 per cent to 148,000 for the year ending 31 December 2020. Postpaid mobile also added 330,000 new contracts during calendar 2020.
[2]
In total, VM now has 5.42 million UK broadband subscribers, up from 5.27 million in the previous year. Curiously, well over a third of its new additions (55,000) came during the last quarter of 2020.
Virgin Media didn't give a reason for this, although you may assume the numbers are skewed due to the temporary halt of in-person installations during the early months of the pandemic. The second lockdown in November 2020 and third lockdown in the new year likely drove demand thanks to the ongoing trend for remote working and online home-schooling.
[3]
With the nation's bums firmly affixed to its collective sofa, Virgin Media's network was under increased strain, with downstream traffic up 23 per cent on average, representing an extra 2.8GB per person a day. There was also a sizeable bump in upstream traffic of 64 per cent, although the telco's annual report didn't specify further. These figures were largely in line with [4]Ofcom's Communications Market Report last year , which noted a 30 per cent increase in data consumption during 2020 to an average of 315GB.
As with [5]Openreach , Virgin Media is extending the reach of its network, rolling out its gigabit-capable DOCSIS 3.1 connections to more places. This effort, dubbed Project Lightning, started in 2015 and has since added 2.5 million premises, with 426,000 added during the last year.
Separately, Virgin Media is upgrading its existing network, with 46 per cent (7.1 million) of its UK customers' premises able to access a gigabit connection. As previously reported, the telco expanded its gigabit-capable network to [6]the entirety of London and Northern Ireland during Q3 of last year , representing 3 million premises.
The firm reiterated its intent to extend gigabit connectivity to its entire network by the end of next year, which it said will account for nearly two-thirds of the government's [7]target of 85 per cent coverage by 2025 .
O2 be a fly on the wall during BT and Vodafone's video calls: Telefónica's UK biz, Virgin Media officially merge [8]READ MORE
This eclipses Openreach, which has roughly 4 million premises wired up to its gigabit-capable FTTP network, although this isn't necessarily a fair comparison given the [9]BT subsidiary's extensive legacy network and vastly wider network catchment.
Despite those rosy figures, Virgin Media reported slightly lower annual revenues of £5.12bn, down 0.8 per cent on fy2019. Q4 revenue fell 0.4 per cent to £1.33bn. This was attributed to a combination of the fallout from COVID-19; lower cable revenue; and lower out-of-bundle mobile usage, with a sharp drop in roaming usage a major factor. Virgin Media returned to profitability for the year, eking out £39m versus a net loss of £337m in 2019.
[10]
Still, the company has some difficult days ahead. The prospect of a return to normality by the end of the year could soften demand for its high-end broadband and paid TV projects. Meanwhile, its proposed merger with Telefónica's O2 [11]faces scrutiny from the UK's competition watchdog over fears it may harm rival mobile providers. ®
Get our [12]Tech Resources
[1] https://www.libertyglobal.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/Virgin-Media-Fixed-Income-Q4-2020-Release.pdf
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_datacentre/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YCxOiML3aHz9xh-0JnO7aAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_datacentre/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YCxOiML3aHz9xh-0JnO7aAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.ofcom.org.uk/research-and-data/multi-sector-research/cmr/cmr-2020
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/04/bt_reports_solid_openreach_fttp/
[6] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/05/virgin_media_q3/
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2020/11/26/uk_autumn_spending_review_telecoms/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/07/virgin_media_and_o2_merger/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2020/05/13/openreach_confirms_intent_to_throttle_118_cooper_exchanges/
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_datacentre/networks&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YCxOiML3aHz9xh-0JnO7aAAAAIU&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2020/12/11/the_cma_o2_virgin/
[12] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: some in, some out
I pay 48 quid for 350mbps. I joined them early last year, thought I'd take a risk on them having been let down by their contention issues some years before. The price I'm paying is of course an offer, there's no way I'm paying them any more for it when the deal is up though. Retentions is your friend, you may actually have to go all the way through to cancel, I can almost guarantee you that you will get someone ring you with a deal before your end date.
I can have gigabit in my area, which would be nice for the novelty factor and that's about it. Oddly they don't offer this as an upgrade, I could only get it from the start of the contract. I also wanted to add TV to my package, the offers page told me it would only be a few quid more. Then when I went to checkout the price bore no resemblance to the one offered at the start. I tried a live chat with them to moan. Never heard back from them. It seems they're deliberately doing themselves out of easy money by not paying attention to easy to fix issues. So their numbers could be better.
Re: some in, some out
That 1.2Mbps upload figure makes it sound like you're confusing bits and bytes.
That package has an "up to" 10Mb upload. 1.2MB/s is 9.6Mb/s
*Shrug* Not saying that is the case, but those figures line up suspiciously closely.
Re: some in, some out
Why on earth are you paying £45 a month for 100mb ? I would be on the phone to retentions immediately. And as somebody else mentioned sounds like you are mixing bits and bytes. And starlink isn't designed for the masses and it's £90 a month for technology in the middle of being tested.
some in, some out
I pay VM (yearly price hike hello), 45 quid for 100Mbps, no shitty tv package, straight internet. For about half that, i.e. 25 quid I can get [up to] 66Mbps via phone line. Sure, it seems like a more-or-less fair balance on both options, but I rarely see much of that 100Mbps anyways. My ftp upload is 1.2 mbps (and yes, I do need to upload large data on regular basis), and my average download on anything (whenever I bother to look) is around 2 - 10 Mbps. Sure, if my wife has a teams session and both kids join theirs (remote learning, etc.), perhaps the connection is maxed, but other than that, I can admire 100 Mbps connection on one of those speed-testing sites, which I'm pretty sure are 'optimized to give you top speed. So, frankly, 60 Mbps is going to be more than enough, most of the time (no 4K or 8K streaming, nosir). In a way, it's a shame to leave VM because I generally have no issues with their connection, other than their f... annoying habit of updating my VM hub bang in the middle of the day, rather than at 4 a.m.
but, imo, in the long run, those price hikes by virgin can't go forever (and 1 gigabit is just a gimmick, unless you're into 4K / 8K streaming).
by the way, it will be interesting to see if VM start getting undercut by 5G mobile services and, at some point, by Musk starlink (which, at the moment, is too pricey, until, presumably, it reaches a critical mass).