But by 'unlimited', Virgin actually means 'restricted', writes Al Warmington
Mobile addicts, listen up. This could be the contract you’ve been waiting for. Virgin Media has announced a new ‘unlimited’ phone contract deal , offering unlimited calls to other Virgin users, unlimited calls to non-Virgin users, unlimited internet access and unlimited access.
You’re probably wondering what the catch is. In fact there’s two. First is the price. It’s a princely £65 per month for all those free minutes, and it’s an 18 month contract. On top of that, you are only eligible if you already have a TV, landline or broadband package with Virgin Media.
Second and more importantly: it’s actually not unlimited at all. Virgin has instead chosen to hide the awkward truth behind a ‘Fair Use’ policy. In this instance, Virgin has deemed that it’s only fair for you to use up 3,000 minutes of Virgin-to-Virgin calls, 3,000 minutes of cross network calls and send 3,000 texts per month. Data is capped at a paltry 1GB.
Now, most ordinary mortals may struggle to find the time to spend 50 hours on the blower each month, in between eating and sleeping, nor might they manage to send so many texts without turning their fingers to bleeding stumps (although we’d probably get through the data allowance in a single train journey). But it’s a far cry from an dictionary definition of ‘unlimited’ that we’ve ever heard.
On the plus side you get a couple of tasty handset to choose from – the Samsung Jet and the Nokia N86.
Link: Virgin Media (via V3.co.uk)
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