Cable giant Virgin Media has today announced a major £110m upgrade that will at least double the broadband speeds for over four million of its internet access customers (does not apply to ADSL2+ based Virgin.net / Virgin National customers). The one exception is Virgin's latest 100Mbps package, which will instead be increased to 120Mbps and that's before its national rollout has even finished (due mid-2012).Planned VirginMedia Download Speed UpgradesThe mass roll-out will start in February 2012 and continue for over 18 months with completion expected to occur by the middle of 2013. Virgin Media also states that its upstream speeds and fair usage Traffic Management amounts will be boosted in proportion to the increase in downstream speed.
* 10Mb increased to 20Mb [2Mbps Uploads]
* 20Mb and 30Mb increased to 60Mb [6Mbps Uploads]
* 50Mb increased to100Mb120Mbps [10Mbps12Mbps Uploads]
* 100Mb increased to 120Mb [12Mbps Uploads]
Virgin Media's CEO, Neil Berkett, said:
"The burgeoning market for better connectivity has given us an opportunity to transform the digital experience of millions of our customers and to bring about a massive step change in the number of UK consumers who have access to exciting, next generation services. Virgin Media has a track record of leading Britain’s digital development and this major initiative will meet the growing demand for faster broadband as well as provide significantly more value to our customers.
The internet has become an integral part of our social, work and family lives, so we think our customers are going to love this. As people are increasingly doing more online, and getting connected to the internet with lots of different devices, having a fast, reliable broadband service should not be a luxury. We want to make sure that consumers have access to the best value broadband service and that means a superfast connection.
"The burgeoning market for better connectivity has given us an opportunity to transform the digital experience of millions of our customers and to bring about a massive step change in the number of UK consumers who have access to exciting, next generation services. Virgin Media has a track record of leading Britain’s digital development and this major initiative will meet the growing demand for faster broadband as well as provide significantly more value to our customers.
The internet has become an integral part of our social, work and family lives, so we think our customers are going to love this. As people are increasingly doing more online, and getting connected to the internet with lots of different devices, having a fast, reliable broadband service should not be a luxury. We want to make sure that consumers have access to the best value broadband service and that means a superfast connection.
Prime Minister David Cameron said:
"I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media; it will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet. Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy."
"I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media; it will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet. Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy."
Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, added:
"Faster broadband speeds are great for customers and great for business, which is why our policy is to deliver superfast broadband to 90% of the country by 2015. Virgin Media’s plans to double broadband speeds are really exciting and we applaud their ambition."
"Faster broadband speeds are great for customers and great for business, which is why our policy is to deliver superfast broadband to 90% of the country by 2015. Virgin Media’s plans to double broadband speeds are really exciting and we applaud their ambition."
Regular readers will recall that the cable (DOCSIS) operator has performed similar mass upgrades in the past and today's effort will no doubt be just as warmly welcomed as those. Crucially it also helps to retain the operators bragging rights by exceeding BT's own 100-110Mbps capable FTTP technology, although BT plans to increase this to 300Mbps during the spring.
But it's important to remember that BT's FTTP service will only reach a small fraction (2.5 Million premises) of Virgin Media's 120Mbps packages, which by contrast should soon be within reach of 13 million households (half the country). As a result Virgin's move is perhaps more designed to combat BT's larger scale up to 40Mbps FTTC service ( BT-Infinity ), which will shortly be upgraded to 80Mbps and can almost reach 40% of UK homes (rising to 66% or more by the end of 2015).
UPDATE 10:54am
Forgot to add the new upload rates, corrected.
UPDATE 12th January 2012
Added a comment from ISP Hyperoptic UK below.
Dana Pressman Tobak, MD of Hyperoptic, said:
"The news today that Virgin plans to make progress in offering reasonable speeds to their customers by 2013 is certainly a welcome development. However, there is a question of semantics with Jeremy Hunt’s promise that the UK will have “superfast” broadband by 2015. As it stands the UK fails to even make the world’s top 10 high-speed broadband countries, with the average Briton struggling day-to-day on a lower than advertised speed that would have no chance of streaming a HD program or movie – a crying shame with the launch of Netflix.
When we founded Be Broadband in 2005 critics questioned what people could do with 24 Mbps – seven years later its mainstream and we are now offering fibre-to-the-premises and speeds of up to 1 Gig. Connectivity demands are fast moving and if the UK wants to compete in the digital age and give customers access to what millions of other global consumers enjoy on a daily basis, then the strategy needs to be a whole new approach to the fibre revolution. And that’s not fibre-to-the-cabinet, its fibre-to-the-building – which not only adds value to the building; it enables consumers to take their internet experience to the next level."
"The news today that Virgin plans to make progress in offering reasonable speeds to their customers by 2013 is certainly a welcome development. However, there is a question of semantics with Jeremy Hunt’s promise that the UK will have “superfast” broadband by 2015. As it stands the UK fails to even make the world’s top 10 high-speed broadband countries, with the average Briton struggling day-to-day on a lower than advertised speed that would have no chance of streaming a HD program or movie – a crying shame with the launch of Netflix.
When we founded Be Broadband in 2005 critics questioned what people could do with 24 Mbps – seven years later its mainstream and we are now offering fibre-to-the-premises and speeds of up to 1 Gig. Connectivity demands are fast moving and if the UK wants to compete in the digital age and give customers access to what millions of other global consumers enjoy on a daily basis, then the strategy needs to be a whole new approach to the fibre revolution. And that’s not fibre-to-the-cabinet, its fibre-to-the-building – which not only adds value to the building; it enables consumers to take their internet experience to the next level."
UPDATE 16th January 2012
A new update has confirmed that Virgin's 50Mbps customers will actually be upgraded to 120Mbps instead of 100Mbps as originally planned (details).
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Comments: 26
Tom LPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 10:25 AM
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When will they ever increase the business connections up from 20Meg though?
adslmaxPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 10:31 AM
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I'm sure the people in congested areas will appreciate the speed boost.
Tom LPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 11:36 AM
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@MM
Touché. Shame as I believe even the 30Meg platform is much better and gives you 30+Meg speeds on average.
P.S. Guess moving to properly static IP addresses (not sticky) is also being deferred for this reason.
DTMarkPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 12:41 PM
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Do we have any more details on what the ugrade consists of technically?
As, I guess, VM could increase all its customers on the slow 10Mbps package to 20Mbps down this afternoon with little more than a number of key presses. However perhaps that would result in an ADSL2+ style of 20Mbps (e.g. somewhere around 6Mbps on average) without additional capacity.
Clearly there is work to be done and the timescales have been announced - what I'm getting at is, what work, are there any details?
VMPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 1:44 PM
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Hold on, what happen to doubled speed eg: 100 Mb should be 200 Mb not 120 Mb (poor maths)
What happen to VM promise of 200 Mb ?
VMPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 1:49 PM
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Upload is pretty poor for top tied 120 Mb /12 Mb (should be 40 Mb upload)
DTMarkPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 1:52 PM
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I think it's mostly for the headlines. To get the faster speeds Openreach have to deploy brand new kit all over the place, VM ony have to tinker with what's already there (comparatively). So every time Openreach makes an announcement about new headline speeds VM can trump them every single time because the part-fibre network is so very much more advanced by comparison.
Gven there are only a tiny handful of FTTP connections, there's not much need to compete with those.
And, as I understand it, the work required to get to 200Mbps as opposed to 120Mbps is very much greater, actually the network can do 445Mbps down 125Mbps up but that's the theoretical capability of the DOCSIS3 network, it certainly doesn't mean that the kit in your street could do that yet.
Is that it?Posted: 11 January, 2012 - 5:29 PM
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Doesn't this simply ape the annoucement from BT some months ago of the doubling of speeds on FTTC to 80Mb and tripling of speeds on FTTP to 300Mb? Seems to have taken a long time to respond, especially if it is to be followed by price rises.
The correspondence about congestion make interesting reading as this is enabled!
DeductionPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 5:46 PM
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Not a fan of Virgin but well done to them. Concerns about congestion are ridiculous, that can happen to any network, in fact sooner or later (if BT ever get big take up numbers) its likely to happen to FTTC in some areas as it becomes saturated. Capacity is one of the biggest concerns for any next gen service, as usage goes up (things like Netflix arriving) and speeds get greater, people do more... It wont be the likes of a bunch of P2P'ers or students in a VM town that only cause congestion anymore. Every provider for the next year or so are gonna worry about what headline speed the can push, then in another year or so they will panic and realise in areas it has capacity issues. Always the way with any new shiny "faster" broadband.
JasonSPosted: 11 January, 2012 - 7:31 PM
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Concerns about congestion are ridiculous
Not all at, its already happening with Virgin even before this upgrade, Virgin has the highest ping highest jitter service in the UK according to the ASA research http://www.asa.org.uk/ASA-action/Adjudications/2011/10/Virgin-Media-Ltd/SHP_ADJ_162278.aspx
Congestion/capacity is more of an issue with cable because of the way the local network is shared out on the street.
DeductionPosted: 12 January, 2012 - 12:11 AM
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As I said congestion and capacity issues can and do happen with any service, some areas and exchanges over conventional BT wires suffer congestion already also, so fibre wont help the situation.
Your ASA link also seems to (i didnt read it all) refer more latency time than congestion and capacity.
I imagine BTs prior TV advert which also bashed on about lightning quick gaming has also been banned.
Claims like that are nonsense from both sides, latency can vary line to line, no matter if it cable based or BT based.
DeductionPosted: 12 January, 2012 - 12:15 AM
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Not to mention it would technically be a lie anyway no matter what the ASA. Vigin and BT FTTC adverts are for a half fibre/half copper solution and its likely anyone that offers a true FTTH product (such as fluidatas new product or hyeroptics) will trash both in terms of latency time.
Again though that doesnt mean either is congested.
JasonSPosted: 12 January, 2012 - 8:19 AM
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Hmmm latency is a result of congestion and capacity, caused by in Virgin space oversubscribed UBR's
Yeah I've seen those other two offerings, very limited though, won't help the majority of the public as it looks like new builds only or flats in london, nice but no solution for the masses
DeductionPosted: 12 January, 2012 - 11:10 AM
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Latency in the case in question is nothing to do with capacity.
Your ASA ruling is nothing to do with congestion or capacity.
Ive seen BT based FTTC connections with far faster Mb speed than my ADSL2+ but lousy latency time (over 35ms to local points compared to sub 20ms on my connection) and thats nothing to do with a persons FTTC connection being more congested than my ADSL2+ connection because it isnt (infact FTTC at this time its probably less congested than the ADSL2+ offering from my ISP).
There are far more things involved that can affect latency times.
If you think latency time is just down to how much capacity an ISP has or congestion on their network then (and not to be rude) sorry but you dunno what you are on about.
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