Virgin Media announces 'free' digital tv to non-cable areas

Virgin Media launches Virgin Free TV across the UK

While the whole Virgin Media vs Sky debate rages on, Virgin isn’t sitting back to wait and see what others think of their lovers tiff.

The company has announced a new digital TV service available for ‘free’ to customers in non-cabled areas. It said to offer "40-plus TV channels, along with over 25 digital radio stations" on a service delivered using what's described as "the digital terrestrial television platform (DTT)".

Sounds a bit like Freeview, doesn't it? That's not surprising, though, because we think that's exactly what it is. If so, that, of course, means you need to be in a Freeview-reception area to enjoy TV from this deal.

A new design of digital box (er, Freeview box?) will be supplied. This measures a diminutive 190 x 90mm and comes with a remote control and a ‘remote extender’ should you prefer to have the box hidden out of sight.

Virgin Free TV (um, Freeview) will be available to any customer subscribing to the company's non-cable 8Mbps Broadband and Talk Anytime phone bundle - for which activation is free but a BT line is required.

Even so, the monthly cost is £19.99, meaning that the overall package is cheap even if not clearly explained by the company. Indeed, it might actually be better value Media's two-for-£20 cable broadband-and-phone offering for people who are heavy phone nd broadband users - though you do need to factor in the additional £11 monthly rental of a BT phone line since, unlike that cable deal, phone-line rental isn't included.

Subscribers who don't want TV from Virgin under the new deal - perhaps they have Freeview already - but still fancy free 01/02 phone calls around the clock and fast "unlimited" broadband connection, can instead opt for a free wireless kit - no broadband modem or router is supplied as standard, so if you do go the free-TV route, you need to look at the cost of buying that broadband hardware.

People living in cable areas aren't able to opt for the phone-based deal, they have to go the cable route. Virgin Media's press release points out that such folk can also get free TV if they sign up for an £11 per month cable-phone service that has a one-off £25 installation charge. What it doesn't mention is that even this basic cable TV service offers a whole lot more than the TV-by-phone service, most notably a big bank of on-demand programmes.

Everything clear now?

No? Well, that's not surprising - the various deals on offer from the company are rather complex and hard to properly understand. For instance, it's close to impossible for people living in cable areas to compare costs with the by-phone services. Unless, that is, they happen to know the postcode of someone living in a non-cable area or have a direct URL, say this one.

So, the self-proclaimed ‘clear pricing’ that Virgin keeps banging on about isn’t really true.

In the case of the latest offering, the TV is free - though, as best as we can tell, simply means you're being given a Freeview terrestrial digital set-top box.

However, there are other costs that visitors to Virgin Media's site will only tend to discover after careful seaching - principally BT phone-line rental and broadband hardware. And there are hidden restrictions with the new deal.

For instance, although phone calls are indeed free around the clock, they're only free to UK 01 and 02 numbers and only with calls lasting less than an hour. You have to ring off before then and ring back again to avoid being charged.

Similarly, when signing up for the company's two-for-£20 cable broadband-and-phone offering, with its free cable-TV service, it's all too easy to overlook the cost of phone calls. These are free at weekends (but also with that one-hour restrictions) but are charged at 3p per minute at all other times - with each chargeable calls subject to a 6p connection charge, so no chargeable call will cost less than 9p.

On one hand, this leaves us wondering just how thick Virgin's marketing department thinks potential consumers are and on the other leads us to believe that even the brightest of would-be customers is going to struggle to discover exactly what each of the services on offer does really cost.

Naturally, we're keen to hear your take in the HEXUS.community.