Virgin Media offers free services during lockdown

Help available for those who need it

by Andy Bassett
Movies & TV Shows News

22

Virgin Media offers free services during lockdown

Virgin Media has announced a range of services available at no charge including some pay TV plus additional mobile data, minutes and texts to help with access to learning resources, staying connected and keeping entertained during the latest lockdown.

Having already provided access to a number of its pay TV channels free of charge during the first UK lockdown in spring 2020, Virgin Media is announcing a range of measures to help UK customers through the latest pandemic restrictions. The company is making a variety of pay TV channels and on-demand programming available for customers at no extra cost, and is also providing free mobile data to ensure families facing financial difficulties can get online so their children can take part in remote-learning. 

Entertainment

Factual pay TV channels now available include Animal Planet HD, Crime+Investigation HD, Discovery History, Discovery Science, Discovery Turbo, Eurosport 1 and 2 HD and Sky History HD, Sky History 2 HD and their associated time shifted +1 channels, which will all be available until 9th February 2021.

These channels are available on Virgin Media’s Mixit TV and Player bundles at no extra cost and eligible customers don’t need to do anything with no change to their contracts. In addition, Sky Nature SD and Sky Documentaries SD are now included with the Documentaries Personal Pick and the Mix bundle. 

Younger viewers will get extended free access to the Hopster app until 31st March 2021. Hopster is aimed at pre-schoolers and provides a safe, ad-free environment for youngsters to learn via fun stories from family-favourites such as ​Pingu and Sesame Street, as well as including educational and world culture programmes. The app is available via the Virgin TV V6 set-top box.

Fitness

For customers keen to keep up their new year’s fitness resolutions,  channel 997 features the Get Moving channel, fronted by two time British Olympic gold medallist, Daley Thompson CBE and is also suitable for children too. 

In addition, the ‘Get Fit Now’ app offers a range of free fitness content for the next eight weeks. Starting with ‘Yoga Groove’ this week, upcoming sessions will also include pilates and belly dancing. The ‘Get Fit Now’ app is available via TiVo and the Virgin TV 6 set-top boxes. 

Connectivity

Given the range of circumstances members of the public find themselves in at this difficult time, Virgin Mobile is offering an additional 20GB of mobile data per month as part of the Department for Education’s ‘Get help with technology’ programme to ensure families that need it have the connectivity so their children can take part in online lessons and remote learning. 

Eligibility checks are carried out by DfE with the 20GB of mobile data added to a customer’s account by Virgin Mobile at no extra cost within 24 to 48 hours. More information is available from the Department for Education’s website.

Virgin Mobile is also offering zero rate learning resources, for example to Oak National Academy, so children can access the resource at no coast to their mobile plan. Access via Virgin Media’s broadband packages already provides connectivity with no data caps. 

Staying in touch

Meanwhile Pay As You Go contracts now offer vulnerable customers 500 minutes, 500 text messages and 1GB of extra data at no extra cost every month, while those on Pay Monthly contracts can receive unlimited minutes and 10GB of additional data every month. Both offers run until 31st March 2021. 

Furthermore, customers who receive Universal Credit are eligible for Virgin Media’s Essential broadband services which costs £15 per month for 15Mbps with no fixed-term contract length and no price changes while Universal Credit payments are being received.  Customers can apply here

Jeff Dodds, Chief Operating Officer at Virgin Media, said, “As we have done since the start of this pandemic, we want to support our customers during the difficult months that lie ahead.” He continued, “From offering free mobile data to support remote learning to providing a great line-up of pay TV channels at no extra cost, we’re pleased to be playing our part in helping our customers during this challenging time.” 

Source: Virgin Press Release
Image Source: Financial Times

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