Three million minutes of WiFi calls saves customers £1,200,000 thanks to Virgin Media SmartCall

Smartphone users have so far saved more than £1.2 million by using Virgin Media SmartCall in just six months.

The service, which allows people to use their inclusive Virgin Media home phone minutes anywhere in the world with WiFi, has been used to make over three million minutes of free calls since its launch in October 2013. This is the equivalent of over five and a half years of constant conversation.

A total of 670,000 calls have been made from across the globe, including Australia and America. The average SmartCall is also 80% longer than a standard mobile phone call at four and a half minutes.iPhone owners have adopted the service in the largest numbers, making up 45% of SmartCall users, followed by Samsung users at 37%.

SmartCall can be used by anyone regardless of their mobile operator as long as they have a Virgin Media home phone. Households can save hundreds of pounds every year, slashing the costs of calling from overseas as well as calls to 08 numbers.

The latest statistics from Virgin Media show that one in every ten home phone calls made by SmartCall users is a SmartCall.

Joe Lathan, director of broadband and home phone at Virgin Media, said. “It’s great to see SmartCall liberate customers’ landlines and save people money. Whether it is a parent making a SmartCall home when working abroad or the kids using WiFi to save their pre-pay minutes, using our free app is a smart call. This gives Virgin Media customers another way to harness the power of their superfast broadband when at home and take the value of their landline with them wherever they go in the world.”

The three million minutes dialled up on Virgin Media SmartCall is equivalent to:

• Usain Bolt running his world record breaking 100m 18,789,144 times
• Watching all five series of Breaking Bad 1,027 times
• Seeing all 64 matches of the 2014 FIFA World Cup 520 times
• Streaming all six Star Wars films over 3,764 times back-to-back.
• Downloading 855,000 HD movies on Virgin Media’s 152Mb superfast broadband

Calculations are based upon the following:

• UK average call duration is 2.5 minutes, according to analysis and comparison organisation billmonitor:  www.billmonitor.com/what-billmonitor-assumes.html
• The typical cost of a call made out of a tariff’s allowance is 40p per minute. Savings may vary by operator and will be greater when roaming.
• Usain Bolt’s 100m world record is 9.58 seconds
• Breaking Bad total run time of 2,921 minutes
• World Cup matches total 5,760 minutes excluding injury time, extra time or penalties
• Star Wars total run time of 797 minutes excluding special editions
• Download times are estimates based on a 4GB HD movie

Virgin Media offers four multi award-winning services across the UK and Ireland: broadband, TV, mobile phone and landline.


The company’s dedicated, ultrafast network delivers the fastest widely available broadband speeds to homes and businesses. And we’re expanding this through our £3bn Project Lightning programme, which will reach 17 million premises.

Our interactive TV service brings live programmes, thousands of hours of on-demand programming and the best apps and games in a set-top box, as well as on-the-go for tablets and smartphones.

We launched the world’s first virtual mobile network, offering fantastic value and services to customers. We are also one of the largest fixed-line home phone providers in the UK and Ireland.

Through Virgin Media Business we support entrepreneurs, businesses and the public sector, delivering the fastest widely available broadband speeds and tailor-made services.

Virgin Media is part of Liberty Global, the world’s largest international cable company. Together Virgin Media and Liberty Global serve 27 million customers across 14 countries.