So I have been on Virgin Mobile for a few months now with the iPhone 6S after leaving Vodafone (Virgin offered me a saving of £15 on my old iPhone 6 contract price) and safe to say they are by far the WORST network in the UK.

Surely in 2016 it is a necessary for every UK network to offer 4G to all its customers not just their business ones. Which makes me think couldn't Ofcom or other PTB force Virgin to switch on 4G to everyone or close down the network?

Really can't see the point of Virgin offering a mobile network when 99.9% of the country can access a 4G network but they won't offer it.

It should be cheaper.

I'm not sure why they should be forced to offer anything. This is a competitive market and if you don't like Virgin's offering, you can sign up to someone else. If any regulation is needed, it would be to ensure that the network operators are offering 4G to the MVNOs like Virgin at reasonable prices.

Not sure about that 99.9% figure either, lots of people still don't live in adequate 4G coverage and/or don't own a 4G phone - and those people will be happy enough with 3G.

Hell, look at the people who stick with O2 despite their shoddy coverage.

This thread = lol.

This sums up my feeling also. They're a business and they are offering a product of their choice. They're not a nationalised public body offering public services under public accountable control. Yes regulation should be done to encourage competition but if Virgin wanted 4G I'm sure they'd get 4G, they've made the choice not to.

The reason why Virgin isn't offering 4G to it's customers is because Virgin is a MVNO and its host network, EE, isn't allowing them access to their 4G spectrum.

If Ofcom need to do anything, they should force all MNO's (like EE) to allow MVNO's (such as Virgin) access to 2G, 3G and 4G bands.

Though I don't know what will happen to Virgin, because remember, EE are in the process of being bought out by BT.

They'll most likely go to O2 or 3, and if they end up with O2 and live outside of a city, i feel very sorry for people (at least for now, they are improving)

Every UK network does offer 4G.

You chose to sign up with an MVNO, there is no guarantee of the actual network offering all services to the MVNO for their customers.

Incorrect, EE are not stopping Virgin access to the 4G layer but as you would expect a discussion has to take place for Virgin to offer this and the right amount of £ to change hands.

The MVNO model is built on certain target markets such as cheap calls to intl destinations.

Having said that O2 and 3 could end up merging and if they did then it wouldn't affect 3G coverage, apart from any old Orange sites that aren't yet integrated into MBNL.

Plus they'd then have O2's 3G2100 and 3G900 to use.

I wouldn't want Virgin to go to Vodafone, because Vodafone is just as bad as O2 with regards to rural coverage - no 3G or 4G unless in a densely populated area.

Okay thanks for correcting me on that. I just assumed that Virgin didn't have access to the 4G. That means that if Virgin had an agreement with EE (and paid them, obviously) then they could, in theory, offer 4G services?

I suppose so, but 3's network could become super bogged down by the ammount of phones that could suddenly be connecting (unless they've fixed the problem by then) and would still be worse for a while as they merge them together.
And do Voda even have any mvno's anymore, considering a lot of the former Voda ones are now on other networks and the last one i know of (sainsburys) couldn't renew their contract with Voda.

Lol, well why go with them if your not happy? Choose a 4g provider.

They are offering a service and it works for their customers, if not I assume they leave. I suspect they could have 4g, however they will have to pay the EE wholesale price, which probably doesn't leave much profit in it for them.

What is it with people on this site that want everything closed because they don't like something?

I have been with Virgin Mobile for many years and apart from the odd difficulty sometimes with the call centre they have been great, I like my deal £10 for unlimited texts, 150 minutes, unlimited internet.

Why should you state they should be made to close I couldn't care less about 4g my mobile does what it needs to do.

Virgin do offer 4G, they choose to only provide it to their business customers.

Yes, the Queen should exercise her royal prerogative and close down Virgin Mobile forthwith for failing to offer 4G to consumers. I fact I suggest that in the future, all telecommunications decisions should be made in such a manner.

You get 3GB of 3G data and 3000 texts for the whole of next month free on PAYG provided you top up 15 quid before the end of this month.

Your top up credit does not come down if you don’t exceed using the 3GB or sending 3000 standard texts.

But the three network is very good. I get an excellent working 3G (H+) signal indoors at home where I live. Likewise with O2 at home using Tesco Mobile.


Surely they will give you a refund of unused top up credit on PAYG like Asda and Sainsbury’s have done if you haven’t used it all up by the deadline when they switch networks.

I only really decided to go with Virgin because at the time you automatically got unlimited data when you topped up a tenner, and I still stuck with them when they still gave you 3GB automatically when you topped up 15 quid.

What’s the percentage of the uk population who own a 4G phone though?

Their call charges are very expensive.

And if you exceed using your data allowance for the month on PAYG, 1 quid per day comes off your credit balance whether you use 100MB or just 1MB. I was caught out a couple of times when I did not set up my battery optimiser settings properly. That at the time early on after they ditched their unlimited data tariff.

So, the OP signed up for something without researching it and/or made assumptions but its not the OP's fault.... oh no......

Waitrose don't sell hot takeaway pizza at my local branch, should they be closed down just because I don't like that?

What an odd thread!

OP - many MVNO's don't have a reseller agreement in place to sell 4G. I'd look into which network you're signing up to and what comes with the package rather than expecting somebody to close them down.

I'm very much inclined to agree with the OP on this, after being with Virgin Mobile (VM) for only 3 months I agree with him they are by far the WORST network in the UK. It is a disgrace only offering 4G to business users, I mean surely personal users would pay an extra £5-£10 a month for 4G I know I would had I not moved to Vodafone.

While his 99.9% of the UK population having access to 4G maybe a bit far off it is still pretty close to who can access it if they wanted (major network and MVNO included), not having a 4G phone isn't really an excuse, if people are so cheap and stuck in the 2000's with shitty crap phones stuck with lame 3G signal then that's their problem.

VM should be banned from selling flagship devices such as the iPhone 6s, Sony Xperia Z5, Samsung Galaxy S6 etc. as without 4G these are pretty worthless devices aren't they not??? Anyone that says they are happy with 3G signal on these devices are either numpty's or clearly need to wake up from 2006 and come into 2016.

Ok VM are a MVNO but so are Tesco Mobile and GiffGaff who both run off o2 and still offer 4G to ALL their customers.

I've got an iPhone 6 Plus on EE and it's currently sat on 3G only mode and the speeds are perfectly adequate. 10-15MBit DL normally.

I don't see what your point is?

Although, my lad is on PAYG (he pays 15 quid every month, to get the 3GB/3k texts), he's just returned from a weekend in Germany, he received a 54 sec call while there, it's showing on his call usage as zero charge. If you look at the call charges on the website for PAYG it does indeed state free of charge to receive calls in the EU while roaming, which strikes me as odd ?