Virgin Media O2 has significantly expanded its support for households hit hardest by the ongoing cost of living crisis by enabling more people to sign up to its social broadband tariffs which start at just £12.50 per month.
Some 9.7 million people receiving benefits from the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP), including those on Income-based Employment Support Allowance, Income-based Jobseekers Allowance, Income Support, Pension Credit or Universal Credit, are now eligible for the provider’s social broadband tariffs, Essential Broadband and Essential Broadband Plus.
The change has been made possible after Virgin Media O2 became one of the first major telecoms providers to fully integrate the DWP’s social tariff checking tool which makes it faster and easier for customers to prove their eligibility with an automated check. The change will mean low-income families and those who need support most can receive fast, reliable and cheap broadband more quickly.
The price of basic Essential Broadband, which was initially available to just those receiving Universal Credit, was cut to £12.50 per month last year for all new and existing customers, making it one of the cheapest packages in the market.
Virgin Media O2 later released a new, faster tier called ‘Essential Broadband Plus’ that delivers speeds of 54Mbps for just £20 per month.
All Essential Broadband products come with no fixed-term contract and no activation fees.
The provider has taken many proactive steps to raise awareness of the support it is offering during the cost-of-living crisis.
This includes:
- making information about Essential Broadband easier to find on its website
- raising awareness through social media channels
- including details within the communications sent to customers every year related to their contract
The provider is also calling for a cut in VAT on social tariffs, from 20% to no more than 5%, which is in line with other utilities such as gas and electricity.
Virgin Media O2 has committed to directly pass on any VAT cut in a price reduction to all its Essential Broadband plans, which will mean a further price drop to just £10.93 for 15Mbps and £17.50 for 54Mbps packages, helping to generate extra savings for households that need them most each month.
Jeff Dodds, Chief Operating Officer, Virgin Media O2 said: “Connectivity remains essential in so many ways, so we are expanding the eligibility criteria for our social tariffs to make it easier and faster for millions more low-income families to access this support during the cost-of-living crisis.”
Virgin Media O2 is the only provider that also offers a dedicated entertainment option for social tariff customers.
Essential Broadband Plus customers have the option to add Virgin Media O2’s latest entertainment product, called Stream, for an upfront, one-off fee of just £20 - a 42% saving on the normal £35 charge - with no long-term contract or ongoing charges for the basic package.
Stream simply plugs into any TV and seamlessly combines live TV, on-demand apps, popular streaming subscriptions and must-watch movies all in one place with personalisation and flexibility at its core.
Any customer taking Stream can get 10% credit back on the subscriptions they add to the service via their Virgin Media bill, giving customers a more affordable way to subscribe to major streaming services.
Full details about Virgin Media social tariff broadband can be found on the website here.
National Databank - free mobile connectivity for those who need it most
As part of an ongoing commitment to tackling data poverty, Virgin Media O2 also founded the UK’s first ever National Databank, in partnership with charity, Good Things Foundation, to provide free mobile data to people who need it.
Virgin Media O2 is donating more than 61 million GB of free O2 data to the National Databank to help people most affected by the cost of living crisis to stay connected.
The National Databank is like a foodbank but for free mobile data, texts, and calls, which can be accessed through more than 900 of Good Things Foundation's community partners across the UK.
The provider also put the Databank front and centre of its 2022 Christmas advertising campaign, alongside bringing the initiative to ten O2 stores meaning this support is available on the High Street for the first time.
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