Virgin Media Business Launch 350Mbps Fibre 3+ and 32GB Mobile Bundle
Cable ISP Virgin Media Business has launched a new UK Voom Fibre+ bundle of unlimited 350Mbps broadband, landline phone and a 4G Mobile SIM with 32GB of included data, which is being targeted at small and medium sized businesses that want a single solution from one provider.
The package, priced at £69 +vat per month, includes: 5 static IPs with an ultrafast 350Mbps broadband connection; a dedicated business landline with unlimited calls as standard; a 4G SIM (VMB uses the EE network) with unlimited UK calls, texts and 32GB of mobile data. The package is backed up with a 12-hour fault fix time Service Level Agreement (SLA) and customers will also benefit from access to 250,000 WiFi hotspots.
Rob Orr, VMB’s Executive Director of Commercial & Marketing, said:
“The launch of Voom Fibre 3+ is great news for our customers – it delivers on demand services for in demand small businesses, anywhere and everywhere.”
The only real downside is that customers also have to accept the problem plagued Hitron CGNv4 routers that come bundled with VMBs. Sadly these have had plenty of problems when it comes to correctly managing Static IP addresses (example), which is not ideal for a business service.
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Aside from that customers can expect to be tied to a 24 month contract term (you can take a 12 month term but this adds £5 to the monthly rental) and upload speeds will be limited to 20Mbps.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
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Shame the upload speed isn’t 50mbps and you cannot have multiple sims and share the data/calls/texts between staff. We could ditch multiple providers and move everything to VMB at the same time with one invoice
These products work well for businesses that have most of their applications in the cloud. Those with more demanding upload needs will, I assume, stick with the MIA products but the price difference for more symmetrical settings and business capacity is still currently high. Hence why ISPs retain the differential.
The bundling of other products is obviously to engage and then sell further into their mobile market. I am sure they will follow with a +2 or +3 inclusive SIM (or it already exists as an option) to capture further “home/office as a base” businesses, however VM do not appear to offer a multiple offering. EE do with Business Connect (VM use EE network)
I know a number of small companies that use both a OR Broadband based and a VM Broadband (via balanced WAN) as reliability for cloud apps is more important than speed.
“These products work well for businesses that have most of their applications in the cloud”
Not with 20Mbps upload they don’t!
@John
We are talking business and cloud working here?
I was referring to those that have embraced the cloud such as Google/Office365, hosted CRM etc. As I said if people have an internal IT footprint they need to buy products that are more symmetrical and robust for client/server, backup, sync etc. e.g. VM’s MIA.
How do you think all their documents and media get into the cloud in the first place? They upload them!
@Rich
This product is not suitable for that business purpose if volumes are high other VM products are meant for that as highlighted on this thread.
More than 20Mb upload is not needed and VM have no reason or competition to provide more than that.
As for a business having to upload its documents to the cloud in the first place. Considering the average Word document is a few Kb’s and a typical Excel and Access document is a few Mb’s at most then why would you need more than 20Mb upload when documents like that from a typical office will be uploaded as good as instantly.
Virgin Media should bring in 355/55 for all residents with a better router and cheaper price. That’s will beat openreach 330/50
Business Products.
VM and OR keep to high Download/Upload ratios on Consumer Products to keep the overall network costs down and to differentiate from their Business Products. Businesses that are cloud based can buy the cheaper business products with similar ratios. Businesses with an internal IT footprint should use higher capacity products.
High upload requirements on Consumer Products raises questions regarding the IT approach the consumer is taking to a given problem. The only issue I experience is synching large volumes of photos from the camera/phone which only occurs when I am disorganised. Otherwise general synching peaks are fine.
Some Altnets are offering symmetrical products to the consumer which may encourage some businesses to use consumer products instead. I know contention ratios are no longer discussed but I don’t want businesses backing up their servers on consumer products and affecting the many.
Not really a big sell for Virgin Media, is it Max?
Spend money upgrading the service then charge less?
“Some Altnets are offering symmetrical products to the consumer which may encourage some businesses to use consumer products instead.”
You do know that most/all of the altnets also offer dedicated business services, right?
@Borat Sagdiyev
Yes Altnets offer business products. But my point is that some businesses may inappropriately use cheaper consumer products if they appear to meet their needs such as upload and fixed IP.
VM and OR differentiate but some Altnets don’t. Many business customers would not understand the complexities behind the scenes. Sales teams may pick it up from the business name but not always.
VM do really need to increase that upload speed, especially since more and more people move to the cloud. Whether that be applications or even game streaming from the likes of ps now and nvidia gfource.
Not only that someone like myself who relies on upload speed for streaming to Twitch and uploading large video files quickly.
Cloud Based working should result in less requirement for upload not more as all content is coming down and little going up.
Appreciate for gaming you need good latency, no traffic management or packet loss. Whether VM are good at this I don’t know as ISPs were not ranked in a recent PCmag article. However they did highlight Sky first and Plusnet on OR products. VM of course and Hyperoptic and Gigaclear on FTTP.
If you are loading lots of large videos for a keen hobby or business then there are more appropriate products but naturally you have to pay.
“VM do really need to increase that upload speed, especially since more and more people move to the cloud. Whether that be applications or even game streaming from the likes of ps now and nvidia gfource.
Not only that someone like myself who relies on upload speed for streaming to Twitch and uploading large video files quickly.”
Game streaming can be comfortably done on only a few Mbs upload speed. Latency would be more important.
twitch for full 1080p60fps only requires 4500 to 6000 kbps.
So more than 20Mb needed… NOPE try again.
cloud gaming from the likes of GEFORCE NOW, Shadow tech and PlayStation now require high bandwidth in both directions with low ping.
but yes with Twitch 6 mbps upload doesn’t seem a lot but with busy house holds it all adds up just like it does with download speed especially when you all gamers 😉 but just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean others don’t
“cloud gaming from the likes of GEFORCE NOW, Shadow tech and PlayStation now require high bandwidth in both directions with low ping.”
GEEFORCE NOW works with 60ms ping time and its only the download that is important for resolution reasons. They even state its fine on ADSL….
https://shield.nvidia.com/support/geforce-now/system-requirements
“For DSL internet subscribers NVIDIA recommends a ADSL2+ or VDSL2 residential gateway.”
Playstation network needs even less and upload is still not important…
https://community.playstation.com/content/pdc/us/en_US/pdc-communities/support/Consoles-Peripherals.topic.html/what_upload_speedis-GEhl.html
“with Twitch 6 mbps upload doesn’t seem a lot but with busy house holds it all adds up just like it does with download speed especially when you all gamers but just because you don’t use it doesn’t mean others don’t”
You could game on PSN and use twitch at full 1080p and do a whole lot more before you would need more than 20Mb upload speed.
Aww looks like someone ‘Jarrod’ likes to always be mrs right lol away cry somewhere else I agree with ‘Bawlk’ and yes I have symmetric upload & download and use quite a large amount of mine just like how someone people use a lot of download but obv with your logic 20down would be enough for everyone.
More upload speed is needed no matter how much Virgin Media and their employees try to convince you it’s not.
I’m a consumer not a business and will not be taking their newly installed FTTP connection based on the fact their upload is only 20Mbps.
In any case small businesses need a stop gap between slow consumer products and expensive fast business lines. Trying to milk fledgling businesses for thousands of pounds just to get into the double figures before they have even started is preposterous.
@John
“Trying to milk fledgling businesses for thousands of pounds”
Sorry can’t accept that. There is a difference between consumer and business just as there is in other markets. In addition if VM increase the upload speed of these asymmetric products it would impact their general network design/config and increase the cost to all users who do not need that amount of upload speed.
The product above is a consumer like product for certain types of businesses. They separately offer VM MIA for more demanding business users and there are other providers. Whether VM will change their products will mainly depend on the competition they experience.
We do not have a universal service as I would like. Past Government’s and their Ofcom agent have purposely created a competitive environment, diverse technical solutions and multiple providers.
So we now get a choice based largely based on luck and get what we pay for.
“More upload speed is needed…”
Yet you still have not explained why
Lots of talk about higher upload speeds.
Simply, VM would have to spend some money on network upgrades to deliver 35 or 50Mb upstream. It’s not an attempt to warp the market they just don’t have the budget or commercial case to obtain more funding.
Once G.fast and FTTP are more widely available they might.
Competition in Ireland is stronger so VM there sell 400/40 to businesses and 360/36 to homes.
What makes me laugh is its not even presented as higher upload speed would be nice to have… Its apparently “needed” and they want it on a residential product.
Maybe “needed” for some old school torrent bloater that needs to sort their down to up ratio on some early 2000s out of date with the times site. Otherwise i have still not heard why more than 20Mb is needed.
Want to explain why more than 20mbps download is needed then ‘Jarrod’
I have 2 VM business lines and I bond them together so I get this
http://www.dslreports.com/speedtest/33892651
Works for me – and the cost is about £150 a month including VAT
The problem is their MIA starts at £149 a month but it’s for speeds way way down – so until they come up (as in more than 10/10) then this works for me.
Methinks there are one or two VM employees giving responses.
Their upload is rubbish. Want to do video conferencing ? Want to upload massive files, large videos (yes believe it or not some people have businesses making/editing videos!) then you need upload bandwidth. It’s not 2001 any more, 20mbits is barely enough. Less than this is pathetic.
I have to avoid doing video conferencing with my EU colleagues because I have pathetic upload speed.