virgin Media-NTL Group rip off customers

[m419]

1. I telephoned ofcom at 9 this morning.

If you have or have used a Nokia 3330 or 3210, you'll know what I mean. When you call someone from your mobile and they end the call, the phone has this 3 bleeps.

They probably use pay as you go sims because its more commercially viable as pay monthly sims can sometimes cost a lot more. If the sim boxes have 50 Orange sim cards, virgin media can easily set up direct debits with Orange for weekly,fortnightly or monthly payments with as much credit as they want, so £100 on each sim is enough to last.

Whether Virgin Media use sim boxes or not, they've got no right charging up to 25p per minute for calling mobiles that has poor connections. They must know about it because i've reported several times.

m419
my wife has a 3210, and she has never heard 3 beeps - we made 2 calls from her phone, one to our landline and one to my O2 mobile, and terminated both from the receiving phone; neither time did we hear three beeps (nor is there anything in the 3210 manual).

btw, the first line in your OP was

For the past 6 years, NTL and Telewest have been ripping off customers by charging customers up to 25p per minute to call mobiles when the companies only have to pay as little 2p per minute.

Orange PAYG calls are 20p to Orange and landlines, 40p per minute to other networks. Orange

You appear to be changing your proposition from "being ripped off" to "bad network". Have you thought that it might be somewhere else in the call journey that the problem is (it could be in VM land, but you seem to be ruling out any other possibilities). Mobile phone to cell (and everybody seems to think the 3 network is pants), cell to Mobile co's switch, switch to nearest switch to termination point (probably over least cost routing), nearest switch to cell to mobile or nearest switch to LLU to handset - lots of factors in there.

I am not saying you are wrong, it just seems you are "shaping" the evidence to fit your hypothesis.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by m419

1. I telephoned ofcom at 9 this morning.

If you have or have used a Nokia 3330 or 3210, you'll know what I mean. When you call someone from your mobile and they end the call, the phone has this 3 bleeps.

Most of my friends and family have Nokia phones (including the 3210). I also had a 7110 myself. So, as you can image I have made a lot of calls both from and to Nokia phones. I can't recall hearing the three beeps unless the battery is running low.

[AndyCambs]

I am interested why the cost from Virgin Media landline phone to Virgin Mobiles are charged at a rate higher than O2, T-Mobile, Orange and Vodafone (assuming that Virgin Mobiles come under "Others")

http://allyours.virginmedia.com/pdf/call_tariffs.pdf

I would have thought that inhouse to inhouse calls would have been cheaper to encourage users to switch to the Quadplay?

[m419]

Some very good points made!

Its not inhouse at all, Virgin Mobile is just a virtual network owned by the NTL group and T-Mobile UK. Its powered by T-Mobile meaning that Virgin Mobile only make money through outgoing calls. T-Mobile charge the termination rates as they own the network and mobile number. Furthermore,NTL-Virgin Mobile have to pay a lease to T-Mobile for using the network.

Therefore, unless Virgin media(NTL Group) make a deal with T-Mobile to lower or remove termination rates to Virgin mobiles, you will pay the T-Mobile rate and not 'other mobiles'. 'Other mobiles' include Dolphin telecom,Manx telecom,Cable and Wireless guernsey,Jersey Telecom,Mobiboo,BT wifi phones and Network rail mobiles.

However, Virgin Mobile do have the power to charge less for calls to Virgin landlines.

The above rules also apply to Mobile world,Fresh,Tesco and all other virtual networks.

[AndyCambs]

Thanks m419 for clearing that up and clarifying.

I'm surprised that Virgin Media haven't added Virgin Mobile to the phone tariffs which would highlight the fourth part of Quadplay.

Would be nice to see lower tariffs both ways between mobile and landlines to roll the two together.

[m419]

Well there is Talk anywhere which gives inclusive minutes to call 01/02/0845/0870,mobiles and international numbers. 200 minutes are £17 per month,400 minutes are £28 per month and there is 800 minutes for around £40 per month, this works out as 4p per minute to call those destinations.

Once your minutes run out you will be charged 3p per minute for calling landlines until your minutes are renewed. 6p connection charge applies when minutes run out. 070,076,07744,07755,0844,0871 and 09 numbers are excluded and are charged at advertised rates.