Dan Howdle | September 28th, 2023

Virgin Media Mega Volt bundle review

Virgin Media currently four 'levels' of TV bundle, to which you can add various broadband, phone (and mobile if you want to add it on) available right now. The Mega Volt Bundle is the one with everything. You won't need to worry about what extras you need to add, because you get it all. As one might expect, the Ultimate Volt, as a result, is certainly not cheap.

If you want it all, then the Virgin Mega Volt bundle (formerly known as Ultimate Volt) is for you. With hundreds of TV channels, Netflix, Sky Cinema and Sky Sports in HD, a TV 360 box, Talk More Anytime and an unlimited O2 5G SIM – plus either M500 or Gig1 fibre broadband (that's an average download speed of 516Mbps and 1130Mbps respectively) – this really is the ultimate package.

What's included in the Mega Volt Bundle?

Here’s a quick look at what you can expect to find with Virgin Media's Mega Volt bundle.

Mega Volt Bundle

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0333 210 1175

New customers only 230+ channels Sky Cinema HD, Sky Sports HD Netflix Virgin TV 360 box 5G Unlimited SIM

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• 1.1Gb average speed
• Unlimited monthly downloads
• Zero one-off cost
• 18 month contract
• Inclusiveanytime calls

£85.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

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£85.00 per month (prices may change during contract)

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order by phone

0333 210 1175

Broadband

The Mega Volt bundle offers Virgin Media's fastest broadband speeds – and the fastest widely available in the UK. And its 'slower' speeds aren’t exactly slow – Virgin’s slowest offering is faster than the entry-level fibre offerings of almost all other UK providers – so just imagine how fast the very fastest is (clue: it’s very, very fast).

Fibre with average speeds of either 516Mbps or 1130Mbps (you can select which you want at the checkout, with Gig1 costing a little more) is ridiculously quick and naturally also comes with unlimited downloads. Even if you have enough kids to field a football team, the UK’s fastest domestic broadband speed is quick enough to cater for you all to be doing different things on the internet at the same time. You could all be streaming 4K/UHD movies in different rooms, on different TVs, and you'd still have bandwidth left over to influence your Instagram followers.

You're more likely to get the speed you're paying for with Virgin Media too. Ofcom's 2022 figures show that the median average download speed for Virgin Media’s 1.1Gbps service is over 1Gbps.

However, it’s not a given that you’ll be able to get Virgin Media in your area – you can enter your postcode on Virgin Media’s website to check availability. Best to do that before you set your heart on the Mega Volt bundle.

TV channels

We’ve found that the way Virgin Media represents its channels on its own site can be a bit confusing. You can check out a much easier to manage, up-to-date list of Virgin channels here on Cable.co.uk that also allows you to see what you’re getting in each bundle side-by-side.

Anyway, here’s what you get with the Mega Volt bundle. The Mega Volt Bundle is the most comprehensive TV package Virgin Media offers – you get (almost) everything. Almost because Sky Still withholds its Sky Atlantic channel and its content, and you no longer get BT Sport in with Virgin's top-end bundle either. BT Sport is now called TNT Sports. Ownership has changed hands and the new owner is not honouring any previous bundling arrangements.

You will get all the Freeview channels – channels you could be watching for nothing either via your TV’s own tuner or through a bargain basement Freeview box. But you also get Sky Sports in HD, Sky Cinema in HD, Sky One, Two and Living, Discovery and a load of kids’ channels.

In fact, there’s more than 230 channels in total – far too many to list here. If you can’t find anything to watch on the 230+ channels, there’s also players including BBC iPlayer, All 4, YouTube, Vevo and Sky On Demand, TV box sets, and Catch-up TV. Likewise, Virgin now bundles a Netflix subscription into the Mega Volt plan, which is good. If you already have Netflix, subscribing to Mega Volt will either mean you no longer have to pay for it if your Netflix subscription is Standard tier, or you'll get a substantial discount if you already subscribe to Netflix Premium.

All those channels could lead to squabbling about what to watch with your family or housemates, so it’s lucky you can add 2 extra Mini boxes so you can stream and view all over the home. And the TV 360 box, as we discuss later, is pretty awesome.

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Equipment

The Virgin Hub 5 router

In our opinion Virgin Media’s router and set-top box, as a free hardware proposition, are second to none. The Virgin Hub 5, the latest, is compact and, as a result, easy to place in an ideal spot. It's the first Virgin broadband router that supports WiFi 6, delivering peak WiFi performance.

It’s also universal across all Virgin Media’s bundles, regardless of your choice. This means that if – heaven forbid – you choose to downgrade further down the line you’ll be able to do so instantly.

Sky and BT, on the other hand, offer a lower-end router for their entry-level bundles, meaning if you want to upgrade or downgrade, you might need a different bit of kit

Read more about Virgin Media routers

Virgin’s TV 360 set-top box

Then there’s the TV 360 set-top box. It’s Virgin Media’s smartest, fastest box yet and it’s one of the best free ones out there.

The remote allows you to search by voice for TV shows, open apps, skip, forward and back and so on to your heart's content. It can also output in 4K (ultra-high definition or UHD), which is something you’ll see only in the top-end packages from the likes of Sky and BT. Additionally, you can set up profiles for each member of the household, so everyone gets individual controls over pause points, favourite channels and even tailored recommendations.

Plus, with the Mega Volt Bundle and the Virgin TV Go app, you can watch 70+ live channels on your mobile or tablet, anywhere there’s WiFi, 3G or 4G. And recording can be shared between boxes around the home.

You’ll get a landline thrown in, if you need it

By default, Virgin Media will throw in a landline with the ‘Talk More Anytime’ add-on. This gives you inclusive anytime calls to UK landlines and mobiles, plus 0845/0870 numbers.

You can opt out of having a landline but this won’t, unfortunately, bring the price down. A physical line will need to be installed at your house and ‘line rental’ is for that, irrespective of whether you use it for broadband, phone, or both.

You even get a 10GB O2 SIM

As if all that wasn't enough, Virgin also throw in a truly unlimited data O2 SIM card. This'll give you access to endless superfast 5G data along with unlimited minutes and texts, plus the ability to roam in 75 destinations.

Conclusion

What’s not to like? The Mega Volt Bundle has it all, you’ll be the talk of the town if you sign up. However, you only really need it if you’ve got a busy household obsessed with watching telly and doing various things on the internet. The high-spec TV 360 box will appeal to gadget nerds but, to be fair, you get the same box with all Virgin’s packages.

Either 516Mbps or 1130Mbps makes this quite likely the fastest broadband speed you'll find. No other widely available provider gets close to that top speed and, with unlimited downloads, you’re free to stream your socks off. And Virgin Media have recently made Gig1 available to their entire network – currently around 55% of UK households. And that's a figure that's climbing all the time.

All in all, Virgin Media’s Mega Volt Bundle is an awesome deal if you can justify the excess. The only downside is it’s pretty pricey and there’s a substantial jump in the monthly price after the first year.

If you change your mind, remember you’re tied in for 18 months but Virgin’s decision to offer only one type of router and set-top box across its whole range means downgrading to cheaper services should be easy. Highly recommended.

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