Virgin Media Essential Collection

Virgin Media Essential Collection

The Virgin Media Essential Collection is a budget bundle of cable TV with TiVo, unlimited fibre broadband and inclusive weekend calls. It’s the lowest priced Collection to include subscription-only channels such as Sky1, making it a great choice for those who demand value for money, but not at the expense of great TV.

Cable TV

At the heart of the Virgin Media Essential Collection is a basic cable TV package called TV M+. It comes with a range of 100+ channels including such subscription favourites as Sky1, Sky2, Sky Living, Sky Arts, CBS Action, Discovery and the Universal Channel. 6 of these channels are in High Definition, including BBC One HD, Film4 HD, ITV 1 HD and Channel 4 HD.

You’ll access your TV channels through a complimentary Virgin Media TiVo. This advanced set-top box can pause and rewind whatever you’re watching live and record up to three channels at the same time. It boasts 500GB of internal storage, which is enough to hold 250 hours of standard TV, or up to 50 hours of High Definition content.

The Essential Collection also comes with access to a massive 2,200 hours of on-demand TV content. This is broken down into 700 hours of Catch-Up TV, for the best of the past week’s output from the BBC iPlayer, 4oD and more, plus a further 1,500 hours of on-demand programming from the channels featured in the in the TV M+ pack, and content from the Sky Anytime service.

Unlimited fibre broadband

The Virgin Media Essential Collection includes up to 30Mbps cable broadband, which should be fast enough to download a music album in around 18 seconds and a TV show in a little over a minute and a half.

Virgin says that this level of broadband service is most suitable for couples and small households, but there’s no reason why more people couldn’t share the connection, especially if all they’re doing online is browsing websites rather than more demanding activities such as streaming HD video or playing online multiplayer games.

Bear in mind that whatever each of you is doing will use up a specific amount of the available bandwidth, thus slowing down the speed enjoyed by everyone else in your home. To avoid problems it’s a good idea to leave large downloads such as movies and games to quieter periods when no one else is online, such as after midnight.

As with all Virgin fibre broadband options you'll get an unlimited monthly usage allowance, meaning you can download as many songs and stream as much on-demand content as you like without incurring any nasty surcharges, or having to put up with any usage caps. A fair usage policy is operated during two peak periods of the day, and going over this figure will result in your connection speed being throttled for up to 5 hours. The good news is that this figure is set quite high and so shouldn’t prove a problem for the most users.

Equipment and extras

Included in the cost of the Essential Collection is a Super Hub, a combined broadband modem and wireless router, which is said to consume less power than using two separate devices. It has been designed to connect up to 20 different wireless devices at the same time making it a boon for families with Wi-Fi enabled devices scattered throughout the home.

Virgin understands the importance of peace-of-mind and so both your broadband connection and wireless router will be covered by free repairs and servicing for as long as you remain a customer. Plus, there’s free internet security to protect your hardware against malicious software such as viruses and spyware, and parental controls to help keep your children safe online.

This Collection also includes a landline phone service, and the Talk Weekends calls package. With this you can make as many calls as you like to UK landlines each weekend, which Virgin defines as the period between midnight on Friday and midnight on Sunday. If any of your friends or family owns a Virgin mobile you'll be pleased to hear that calls to those phones are also included at weekends, although some terms and conditions do apply.

The Essential Collection is aimed at budget-conscious couples and small families who want a high-end digital TV recorder with a small selection of big name channels, unlimited superfast broadband and weekend calls. If this sounds like you then the Virgin Media Essential Collection can give you a great range of services at an affordable price, and all backed up with free servicing and repairs for as long as you stay with Virgin Media.