Upheaval will be ‘seamless’ for most
Internet service conglomerate Virgin Media UK (VMO2) is to move 3 million Virgin Mobile customers to equivalent mobile plans on O2, the mobile operator that cable company Virgin Media (owner of Virgin Mobile) merged with in June 2021. The migrations will start in March and continue across 2023.
All the underlying mobile network traffic is now being run across the O2 network, according to ISP Review, as Virgin Mobile’s move away from Vodafone’s Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO) platform was completed last year. As part of this migration, Virgin Mobile’s customers will receive unlimited texts and voice calls and face the option of doubling their data or getting “unlimited data” for the same amount each month. “No customers will see the cost of their plan rise as a result of this move,” said the operator.
The operator claims that the move will run ‘seamlessly’ over the air for the ‘vast majority’ of customers with no need to replace SIMs, port phone numbers or change billing dates or information. “Vast majority is not the same as all,” said Mark Jackson, editor of ISP Review. “Big migrations tend to throw up problems.” Details of the changes and steps will be outlined to individual customers at least 30 days ahead of their migration taking place. Migrations will occur throughout the year, and “by the end of 2023 all existing and newly joined Virgin Mobile customers will have been moved to O2 plans.”
“Our teams will guide customers through every step of the migration and we’re laser focused on making sure this all occurs in the most hassle-free way possible,” said Gareth Turpin, Chief Commercial Officer at Virgin Media O2. “With all of our mobile brands now powered by the award-winning O2 network, we are making fantastic progress in our integration plans while continuing to deliver a range of knockout mobile services that cater for all needs.”
The change itself was spotted by ISP Review, after several of Virgin Mobile’s product pages were updated to include the following notice: “Virgin Media and O2 have joined forces so, at some point soon, you’ll be moving from a Virgin Mobile plan to an equivalent O2 plan.” The move will surprise many as the Virgin Mobile brand has a relatively successful history in the MVNO market. By contrast, Virgin Media has been one of the most complained about brands in telecoms, according to regulator Ofcom.
It could be that VMO2 is learning from BT and EE’s challenges with their own merger, said Jackson. “BT initially tried to maintain its own BT Mobile brand, but over the past few years they’ve walked this back and if you try to join BT Mobile today then the products are all from EE,” said Jackson. By taking this action, VMO2 is also moving behind O2’s cleaner branding, while still maintaining closely tied bundles (such as VOLT) with Virgin Media’s fixed line broadband, phone and TV products.