Are Virgin Media becoming irrelevant?

For many years Virgin Media provided broadband and TV services over coaxial cable and charged handsomely for the service. Admittedly the service was quite stable and probably worth the premium price being charged for the service in comparison to XDSL services (broadband over the phone line service) of that time.

We’ve been contacted by a number of Virgin customers who are being charged up to 100€ for basic services whereas the norm for these services now is in the range of 30/40€ and they’ve been wondering why.

With the advent of FIBRE to the home services that are becoming common in many areas including in urban areas. These services are, in general, just as stable as broadband over coaxial services have been up to now and in many cases are much much better.

Nowadays Virgin find themselves in a position that they are far too expensive, charging more than double that which other providers are now charging for what is a faster and what is considered to be a generally “better service”, both in quality and the range of services provided.

Virgin Media are slowly moving their services over to Fibre too but this build-out will take some time. To continue to be relevant Virgin will have to become competitive to succeed in an already crowded marketplace.

So unless Virgin change their tune and become competitive once again people will vote with their feet (and wallets) and abandon the service in their droves and change providers in their search for the better service.

Eventually the Virgin Media service will wither and die, unless the necessary change happens quickly. It’s been a good run for Virgin but “the times they are a changing”…