Smartcall, Virgin Media Cloud and Webspace closure

[Martin_D]

A change to our line-up

As more of our customers are choosing to use alternative apps and services, we’ve decided to stop offering Virgin Media Cloud, Webspace and SmartCall from 28th April.

If you’ve used Virgin Media Cloud, Webspace and SmartCall in the past, you should receive a letter in the post but here’s what’s happening when.

Webspace

Webspace closes on 28th April, but there’s something even better in store for you. We’ve teamed up with GoDaddy® – a world-leader in Domain Names, Websites and Web Hosting – to bring you 12 months’ free hosting services, plus a free website builder, domain name and professional email.

That’s a tidy saving of £59.88 over the year, with extras including:

A free domain name (.co.uk or .uk, saving you £4)
A free email account connected to your domain name
A clever website builder that makes it easy to upload text and images (bye-bye, HTML!)
Tools to help you move your existing site across (so you stay online)
1GB of storage (that’s more room and flexibility than Webspace)
150GB bandwidth (so if your site goes viral, it’ll stay online)
To get started you’ll need to enter your unique code (which you’ll receive in your letter) at virginmedia.com/webspace (terms and conditions apply).

Remember – you’ll need to save the content from your website before 28th April to avoid losing anything.

Virgin Media Cloud

It’s reassuring to have somewhere safe for all your digital valuables. So before we close Virgin Media Cloud on 28th April, we recommend downloading your family photos, videos and documents to a local device to make sure you don’t lose anything. This might take a few steps if you’ve got a lot of stuff. You won’t be able to upload anything to Virgin Media Cloud after this date.

If you’d like to back up your stuff again, why not try Dropbox? With 2GB of storage, Dropbox lets you back up all the stuff you currently have on Virgin Media Cloud, and even share big files.

Better still, it works on all your devices – seamlessly syncing your files between them. Plus, you’ll bag an extra 3GB of storage if you link the Dropbox app to your phone camera. And when you recommend Dropbox to your nearest and dearest, you’ll get a bonus 500MB for each referral.

For help downloading your stuff and setting up your Dropbox account, visit virginmedia.com/cloud (terms and conditions apply).

And don’t worry – if you’re currently paying for extra storage, we won’t charge you a penny in March and April.

SmartCall

We’re planning to close SmartCall on 28th April when the contract with our technology partner ends.

But don’t forget all those minutes you’ll still enjoy with your Virgin Media home phone – including unlimited landline calls and free calls to Virgin Mobile phones, 0870 numbers and our Directory Enquiries service.

For more details about SmartCall closing, head to virginmedia.com/smartcall

[RichardCoulter]

Looks like LG are having a clear out of the initiatives taken by the former regime.

[1701-e]

And no price reduction I'm sure.

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by RichardCoulter

Looks like LG are having a clear out of the initiatives taken by the former regime.

Not particularly. Virgin Media was bought in 2013. Virgin Media Cloud didn't launch until January 2014.

[muppetman11]

Originally Posted by 1701-e

And no price reduction I'm sure.

There all the same now pay more for less.

[Stephen]

I doubt its Liberty Global 'clearing out'

But contracts ending and new ones being made.

So I take it my ntlworld webspace will vanish?

[BenMcr]

Originally Posted by Stephen

So I take it my ntlworld webspace will vanish?

All sites on virginmedia.com, ntlworld.com, blueyonder.co.uk and virgin.net webspace will be taken down at the end of April

[trickytree]

Smartcall is the only one I have used in the past but as mentioned no smaller bill.

It seems tons of features are going or degrading when Sky are just opening up a whole new world.
Virgin better have something fairly major up their sleeve as the only saving grace for them with me right now is the broadband.

[denphone]

Yes without their broadband and BT Sport they would be up the creek without a paddle in my opinion.

[Taf]

Cuts cuts and cuts.... has a Conservative taken over at LG?

[Kushan]

... I have no issue with the closing of these services.

I wouldn't recommend their use to anyone, as it's yet another thing tying you to your ISP that you can get better elsewhere. It's a shame they're not partnering with Dropbox like they are with GoDaddy, a few extra GB's on my Dropbox account wouldn't go amiss.

SmartCall was useful back when we had to pay for 0800 calls on mobiles, but now they're free there's little use for it. Instead of paying for XL phone or whatever, just throw the same money at your mobile provider for unlimited minutes, so you can not use them as well.

None of those offerings were particularly groundbreaking, none of them were reasons to move to Virgin or stay with them.

[nefu]

I found Smartcall very useful in areas of poor coverage and overseas, any suggestions for an alternative?

[JPAC]

So it's free for a year then £59.88 per year after that?

[BenMcr]

That's how it reads, although you aren't required to choose Go Daddy.

As you have to manually download and then upload content from one site to the other, you can choose another site provider if it better suits your needs.

[Kushan]

Originally Posted by nefu

I found Smartcall very useful in areas of poor coverage and overseas, any suggestions for an alternative?

A lot of mobile providers these days offer a similar app for this exact reason. I'm with Three, their app is called "In touch".

Originally Posted by JPAC

So it's free for a year then £59.88 per year after that?

IF you choose to stay with Godaddy, which I wouldn't recommend. They're one of the worst providers out there for this kind of thing and when they say "bye-bye, HTML!" they really mean "Bye-bye the one thing that lets you leave us at any time and move your site to another provider".