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Virgin Media’s mid-tier Bigger Combo bundle combines a fast broadband deal with a decent TV channel bundle, including sports or movies. But is it worth the money? Our guide outlines what the bundle includes and looks at add-ons you can choose to enhance the package.
| Price | From £40 per month |
| Broadband | M250 (250Mbps) up to Gig1 Fibre (1,000Mbps) |
| TV | 190+ channels with the option to include extra sports and family channels |
| Phone | Unlimited weekend calls to UK landlines and Virgin mobiles; upgrade to evening and weekend calls, anytime UK calls, or anytime UK and international calls for an additional monthly fee |
| Installation | Free |
| Contract length | 18 months |
Rather than just a single package, Virgin Media’s Bigger Combo bundles are an assortment of packages, including the Bigger Combo bundle + Movies and Bigger Combo bundle + Sports.
| Package | Download speed | Monthly cost | TV |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bigger Combo bundle | 264Mbps-1,000Mbps | £40 | 190+ channels, including basic Sky channels |
| Bigger Combo bundle + Movies | 264Mbps-1,000Mbps | £61 | 200+ channels, including Sky Cinema HD |
| Bigger Combo bundle + Sports HD | 264Mbps-1,000Mbps | £65 | 195+ channels, including Sky Sports HD |
Virgin Media’s Bigger Combo bundles start with its M250 fibre broadband (up to 264Mbps average download speed) at a minimum and levels up to its Gig1 Fibre broadband (up to 1,130Mbps average download speed), depending on the package you choose.
At both speeds, a full HD film will download within a few minutes, and you’ll be able to play online games without running into any lag. Five people could easily browse at once without a dip in performance.
As a rule of thumb, the more people sharing the same connection in your household, the higher broadband speed you’ll need. So, if you live in a large household with multiple online gamers or Netflix bingers, we suggest choosing a higher speed to be on the safe side.
It’s worth noting, however, that the speeds you can access will largely depend on the fibre capacity in your area. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to upgrade to one of Virgin’s faster connections. Again, if you have a house full of people doing data-intensive activities at once, it’s worth considering this option.
All of the Bigger Combo bundle packages come with more than 190 essential, free-to-air channels as standard, as well as basic Sky channels. This includes everything you’d expect from a basic entertainment selection, plus some key Sky channels, such as Sky Showcase, Discovery HD, Alibi HD, TLC and Sport Lite channels such as Sky Sports News.
Let’s take a look at each of the Bigger Combo packages and see what they offer.
With this package, you’ll get everything the basic Bigger Combo provides, as well as access to Sky Cinema HD channels. You’ll find some of the biggest blockbusters and recent releases on these channels, plus a whole host of classic films to suit the whole family.
With download speeds averaging at least 264Mbps, the broadband connection you get with this package should suit most medium- to large-sized households.
If you want to watch almost all the big games throughout the season, consider the Bigger Combo + Sports HD package, which also comes with eight premium Sky Sports channels.
This package, like the Bigger Combo bundle + Movies package, comes with average download speeds of 264Mbps. Meanwhile, upload speeds average 20Mbps.
You’ll get the new Virgin Media TV 360 set-top box with your tariff. It’s advertised as 4K UHD and HDR ready, but this isn’t necessarily a unique selling point – you’ll get no different from other big hitters like Sky or BT. A set-top box is a set-top box, after all.
The 360 box does offer voice control functions, which are fun if not totally necessary. Otherwise it does everything you expect it to (watch, stream and record TV).
You have the option to add a Mini box that will give you viewing/streaming functionality on another TV in your house, but this will add £10 a month to your tariff.
The Bigger Combo bundle includes a UK landline with free weekend calls to other UK landlines and Virgin mobiles, though you can upgrade your package to include unlimited evening and weekend calls, anytime UK calls, or anytime UK and international calls. Though nice to have, this won’t matter much for some users, as not many people use landlines anymore, and traditional landlines are being phased out in favour of digital phone lines.
Non-weekend calls, or calls to other mobiles, will cost extra anyway, so if a landline is important to you, you might want to consider upgrading to an anytime calls package for a bit more money each month.
The Bigger Combo bundle starts at £40 a month at the time of writing, and there’s currently no installation charge for new customers across all Virgin Media products. This is pretty good value for what you’re getting. You’ll struggle to get as many TV channels and similar broadband speeds for less elsewhere.
However, if you want a comprehensive package with sports and movies, you may want to consider whether you’d be better off paying a little bit extra for the Mega Volt bundle (at £85 a month).
Alternatively, if you want fewer channels, you can get the cheaper Big Combo bundle deal, which starts from £33 a month, but bear in mind, you’ll get average download speeds of just 132Mbps as standard for this price.
All of these Virgin bundles currently come with free installation and setup for new customers – a saving of £30.
Choosing between the Bigger Combo bundle and other Virgin Media broadband deals is a matter of working out how many channels and what kind of download and upload speeds you need. But how do they compare to similar offerings from other broadband providers?
BT’s closest equivalent, in terms of TV channels, is its Fibre Essential broadband and EE TV Entertainment package, which starts at £43.99 per month. However, the base broadband speed is slower (67Mbps), and it’s got fewer channels. You will get Sky Atlantic on BT, which you won’t get on Virgin Media, so if you’re particularly keen on HBO programming, its offerings are something to consider.
Sky Broadband’s Ultrafast broadband and TV bundle currently costs £39 per month, and it offers stiff competition to Virgin Media’s Bigger Combo bundles. You get Sky Ultrafast broadband (at 145Mbps) and its basic Entertainment TV package, which comes with more channels than Virgin’s bundle (including, of course, Sky Atlantic). However, adding a sports package will bump the cost up significantly, so if that’s important to you, you might still be better off with Virgin’s Bigger Combo bundle + Sports.
