Revealed – Prices for UK ISP Virgin Media’s 1Gbps Broadband UPDATE2

Credible sources have revealed to ISPreview.co.uk that ISP Virgin Media’s new DOCSIS 3.1 powered 1Gbps broadband package, which is due to go live in Southampton first before becoming available to all 15 million of their UK premises by 2021 (here), is expected to cost from £62 per month standalone. Further details follow.

The current rollout plan states that more than 1 million UK premises should be able to access the new speeds by the end of 2019 (starting with 100,000 in Southampton), which will be made available across both Virgin Media’s existing Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network and their latest Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based lines.

Customers who take out the new package will also be sent a new DOCSIS 3.1 compatible HUB 4.0 (TG3492LG-VMB / Gigabit Connect Box) router and we’ve attached a recently leaked picture of the new device above. We’ve actually covered this router quite a bit in our earlier article from July 2019 (here) and the official specification sheet is expected be published soon.

However so far we’ve been in the dark about how much this service will actually cost, at least until now. According to our sources, Virgin Media will unveil all of the details sometime this week (possibly today) and we’ve been able to get a look at what they’re expected to announce.

Virgin Media’s Gigabit Pricing

The Gigabit package is expected to be advertised alongside an average download speed of 1104Mbps and an average upload of 52Mbps, which is in keeping with the operator’s history of setting a max profile speed above the headline rate in order to ensure they can deliver on what is advertised. At the time of writing the standalone (solo) version of this service is expected to cost from £62 inc. VAT per month or £67 when bundled with phone.

The tier will also be offered as part of an “Ultimate Oomp” style bundle with TV, which we understand should cost £119 per month. Take note that we don’t yet know if this is discount (i.e. first contract term) or post-contract pricing, which should become clear soon (hopefully today – we’ll update accordingly).

At launch you won’t be able to take their gigabit package on a 30 day term like you can with the others, which means it’ll only be available via an 18 or 24 month contract. Likewise those who take this service won’t be eligible for Virgin Media’s “QuickStart” self-install option (i.e. you’ll need an engineer visit and the £35 setup fee still applies).

The engineer visit will include a check for WiFi blind spots and they may issue you with a free signal booster if one is needed (the same sort of format as Virgin’s Intelligent WiFi approach). Obviously poor WiFi performance can become a big problem for packages of this speed and hence the engineer (i.e. consumers do blame broadband for slowdowns, when it’s often the wireless network’s fault).

Jeff Dodds, Virgin Media’s COO, said:

“By launching our hyperfast Gig1 services in Southampton today, we’re marking the start of next-generation gigabit connectivity across our entire network at a speed and scale unmatched by anyone else.

This service is more than 20 times faster than the UK’s average broadband speed, meaning that households can do everything they want to do online, at the same time, without delay and are well set for whatever comes next.

The Government has called for nationwide gigabit connectivity and we’re helping them leap forward to reach this ambition.”

Overall we think the pricing will be very competitive, particularly when you consider that at the time of writing Virgin Media are charging £52 per month for their 350Mbps tier (standalone) and £59 when you add a phone to that (note: the phone bundle is currently discounted to £37 for the first 12 months). In general this isn’t a million miles from what some alternative network FTTP providers charge, although those tend to offer faster uploads.

We’ll update again once the official details are published. As usual the launch will initially focus on Southampton – where a trial has been running for the past few weeks – but it’ll quickly spread to other cities and towns (e.g. Reading, Manchester, Basingstoke and Bracknell are predicted to be next in line or very high on the initial list).

UPDATE 7:16am

Virgin Media has now added a general information page about their 1Gbps launch in Southampton to their website, which confirms the average speeds stated above and says the service is live but doesn’t add a lot of extra detail (prices not yet showing and no router spec). We followed the associated link and tested several postcodes in the city where Virgin is present but all returned this: “Sorry, Gig1 Fibre Broadband isn’t available in your area.”

As such you should take Virgin’s claim that “Services are already live in Southampton and will launch in other UK cities over the coming months” with a pinch of salt, since at the time of writing it doesn’t yet appear to be available across their entire network patch. We’re unsure whether this is just an ordering system issue (most likely somebody hasn’t flipped the final switch yet) or a network one.

We haven’t yet received the full details but will update once they arrive (i.e. when Virgin’s PR team get into the office this morning).

UPDATE 8:51am

The official press release has dropped, which appears to confirm everything in our earlier leak and we also get some extra details. In terms of those extra details, we now have a full price list and Virgin Media says they will adopt a “guaranteed price freeze for at least 24 months.”

The PR also confirms that the Hub 4 router is powered by an Intel Puma 7 chipset and supports the wave 2 802.11ac WiFi standard, including 3×3 MIMO on the 2.4GHz band and 4×4 MIMO on the 5GHz frequency.

Nicky Morgan MP, Secretary of State for DCMS, said:

“I am pleased Virgin shares our ambition to boost the UK’s connectivity by investing in the fastest and most reliable broadband speeds. This will mean people can really take advantage of the digital revolution.

It is fantastic Southampton will benefit from Virgin’s investment and progress is being made to get gigabit-capable connectivity right across the UK.

We are also investing heavily to make sure the whole country can capitalise on next generation broadband and are committed to creating the right opportunities for industry to push ahead with nationwide rollout.”

UPDATE 12:55pm

Finally, we have the full Hub 4 specs.

General

• LG tower style casing (205 x 116 x 91mm)

• CE certified

Interfaces

• F connector

• 4 x LAN Gig Ethernet (10/100/1000 Base T)

• 2 x FXS ports (3 REN each)

• Low voltage power connector

• On/Off switch

• WPS button

• Factory reset button

• Indicator LEDs (multipurpose LED “ring”)

WAN

• 1 x RF DOCSIS 3.1 2×2 with switchable diplexer

Wired LAN

• 4 x 802.3ab LAN switch ports (without LED activity indicators)

Telephony – 2 ports

• EuroPacketCable 2.0

• UPC-SIP

• VM-VTP

Routing

• QoS support

• Ability to provide no routing/no NAT

Wireless LAN

• 2.4GHz & 5GHz concurrent

• 2.4GHz – 802.11n – 3×3

• 5GHz – 802.11ac Wave 2 – 4×4

• EIRP to regulatory maximum

• Wi-Fi Alliance certified

• WPS, WMM, WPA Enterprise

GUI & Features

• Firewall

• UPnP

Power supply

• External 100V-240VAC; 12VDC, 3.33A

• 40W continuous load maximum

Software

• RDK-B