Virgin Media UK Squeeze a Little Extra Broadband Speed for Subscribers

Cable operator Virgin Media appears to be quietly tweaking the ‘Max Traffic Rate‘ (speed profile) for some of their broadband packages, which for example means that those with their 300Mbps HomeWorks+ add-on may theoretically be able to achieve 345Mbps (its old profile was 330Mbps).

Similarly Thinkbroadband has spotted that the same change appears to be occurring on slower consumer packages. For example, some of those on the VIVID 200Mbps service (old profile 220Mbps) are now seeing a new Max Traffic Rate of 230Mbps. At present this is only benefiting downstream (download) performance, while uploads remain the same.

A Spokesperson for Virgin Media said:

“We often tweak our network profiles to ensure that we continue to deliver the speeds we sell as the volume of customers on our higher tiers increases.”

It’s worth pointing out that the fastest consumer package on Virgin Media’s service is actually their hidden VIVID 300Mbps option, although at the last check we were told that this wasn’t yet being offered to the operator’s entire cable base (here) and that’s why you don’t see it on their public product page.

The CEO of Virgin Media, Tom Mockridge, has long promised that they would always stay ahead of Openreach (BT) in terms of consumer broadband speeds and as such they’ll no doubt be keeping an eye on their arch rival’s new 330Mbps capable G.fast product that is about to begin its pre-commercial pilot phase (here).

Similarly BT’s FTTP service can also offer speeds of 500Mbps and 1Gbps, which is something that Virgin Media cannot yet match. On the other hand these have limited coverage and aren’t yet being offered by any ISPs. Both options are perhaps also too expensive for normal residential use (i.e. they’re more targeted at SMEs). However we have heard whispers that Virgin Media might be conducting limited closed trials of a 500Mbps package, but that has not been confirmed.

One other reason for Virgin Media’s tweaking could be because it helps the operator to meet the Advertising Standards Authority’s (ASA) 10% rule for advertised speeds. Otherwise we’d expect the new profile tweak to show up in Virgin Media’s next batch of official performance results (the one for January 2017 is largely unchanged – below).

VM’s Typical Broadband Speeds for January 2017