Virgin were supposedly a new entrant in the cell-phone market, but in truth they are an air-time supplier for One2one/T-mobile. Nor even were they the first to do so, with firms like Telecom Plus having piggy-backed onto that network early in 1999.

Branson's team though are to be congratulated for trying to make their pricing structure more transparent than most. They make their customers pay slightly more than most companies for the phones, but then only charge them for their use. One can pre-pay or start an account; then all one pays  is 15p per minute for the first five minutes of calls, then 5p for any subsequent minutes used (all per any single day starting at 4am). There is no daily or monthly charge of any sort!

Their handsets are not as heavily subsidised as those of other networks, though the prices have been creeping down. However for the price of some Virgin Handsets, one can buy an All-in-One package on One2one that comes with twelve months line rental and thirty minutes a month included. Virgin supposedly have add-ons so you can buy other Virgin Products but who cares!

There is one circumstance where Virgin can be a very sensible buy; If you have an old One2one phone or any dual-band handset that isn't network locked, then you can buy a sim-card for £10.00 (inc £5 of calls) and have a very cheap account.

Unlike some Orange account tariffs you can no longer ring 0800 numbers, except numbers like the AA and childline.

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Last modified: May 12, 2003

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