It’s been a good run, but it wasn’t going to last forever. If you’re a Virgin Mobile customer, you may have been accessing Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, without any of that data counting towards your limit. That’s about to change.
[Mobile Data] via Shutterstock
As explained in an announcement on their website, changes to plans will ensure all social media use counts towards data limits, as of May 1st. According to Virgin, if historical use is anything to go by, most customers won’t be affected — though you may see 50% and 85% warnings more often.
In its own words:
Up until now, Virgin Mobile has covered the cost of access to these sites (we hope you enjoyed the freebie!)
The silver lining is the cost of going over your limit has been reduced by about 75% — from 20.5c/MB to 5.2c/MB. That change is already in effect.
Customers are of course welcome to revisit the question of whether they are on the right plan, and you can ring 131 922 to talk to them about it. As we’ve said before, this could also a good time to have a look at other carriers — even with Virgin doubling its data limits six months ago, that doesn’t necessarily making them better than prepaid plans.
Comments
4 responses to “Virgin Clamps Down On Social Media Data, ‘We Hope You Enjoyed The Freebie’”
yeah this is not good news. We signed up with Virgin because they had free social media. The dealer told us it was ‘just like Optus, but you get better data caps’ – now Virgin say they never offered free social media so we have to suck it up.
Check your contract, they have to fulfil what is in the contract to the letter. If it says free social media, then legally you get to keep it. If it doesn’t or says its only provided for a certain amount of time, then thats what you agreed to.
True! If they have changed the terms of the contract on you, they have to give you written notice but allow you to exit the contract without penalty.
How much data does one actually use for mobile social media I wonder.
very little, however data sessions are what chews it. If I pop on every few minutes and just check a feed, it starts a minimum data session dependant on carrier. This can also be followed by rounding up etc.
But to give you an idea, I’m a heavy facebook user and I use about 200mb per month on it, you can check in data usage if you have an android phone.