Virgin Media UK Boosting Upload Speeds for 100Mbps Tier

Cable and fibre optic broadband ISP Virgin Media UK has continued the rollout of their planned 10:1 ratio boost to upload speeds by raising the upstream rate from 6Mbps to 10Mbps on their popular M100 (100Mbps download) package, with 50Mbps (M50) subscribers also benefiting.

The plan to increase upload speeds was first officially confirmed in July 2019 alongside their annual price hikes (here), although at the time they were only applying this to their 200Mbps tier (i.e. uploads went from 12Mbps to 20Mbps). Since the end of last month we’ve also been seeing customers on their M100 plan benefit from an upstream boost to 10Mbps.

The next group to benefit after the latest M100 upgrade were those on their entry-level 50Mbps packages, which have seen uploads boosted from 3Mbps to 5Mbps. The exception to this is their new 500Mbps tier, which has already been given the same upload speeds as their existing 350Mbps plan (i.e. 35Mbps).

However if you want a 50Mbps upload speed then you’ll need to wait for the launch of their 1Gbps package via DOCSIS 3.1 technology (here), which is currently in trial around Southampton (Hampshire, England) but will become available across virtually their entire network by the end of 2021.

Separately Virgin Media appear to have stopped selling their entry-level 50Mbps tier to new broadband and phone customers (at least it doesn’t show up on their public site), although it’s still available on standalone broadband and triple-play TV packages. Meanwhile the only way to take their top 500Mbps tier is still as part of a bundle with their Pay TV services, either that or as a business connection.

The ISP has also added a £50 bill credit this week to their existing broadband discounts for new customers.

UPDATE 2:57pm

A spokesperson for Virgin Media has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that their “upload boosts have now been completed across all products.” I’ve adjusted the language above slightly to reflect this because we initially weren’t sure if the rollout for their M50 package had also been completed.