Virgin Media Business UK Doubles Broadband ISP Upload Speeds UPDATE
Customers of UK ISP Virgin Media Business (VMO2) have informed ISPreview.co.uk that the upload speeds on their “Voom Fibre” packages for small businesses are being roughly doubled, which for example means that subscribers to their 350Mbps Voom Fibre 1 plan will see their uploads go from 7Mbps to 20Mbps.
Unlike Virgin Media’s consumer division, VMB offers the same 350Mbps download speed across all of their Voom Fibre 1, 2 and 3 packages, while Voom Fibre 4 gets the 500Mbps treatment. In short, each package only really differs based on the level of support offered, as well as upload speed and IP address assignments (static vs dynamic etc.).
However, the provider’s Voom Fibre broadband customers seem set to benefit from a free boost to their upload speeds, which we understand will look like this (see table below). Apparently, an official announcement may follow early next week.
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In a brief email, customers were told: “We’d like to share some information with you. We’re increasing the upload speeds across our Voom Fibre service, and it won’t cost you a penny. The speeds vary depending on the service you have … there’s nothing you need to do. Your router will be automatically rebooted to initiate the new upload speeds.”
| Product | Old upload speed | New upload speed |
|---|---|---|
| Voom Fibre 1 | 7 Mbps | 20 Mbps |
| Voom Fibre 2 | 15 Mbps | 30 Mbps |
| Voom Fibre 3 | 20 Mbps | 40 Mbps |
| Voom Fibre 4 | 35 Mbps | 50 Mbps |
At present, this change only seems to apply to existing customers and not everybody appears to have received the notification.. yet (possibly because such upgrades are usually done in gradual phases), while the packages for new customers (as advertised via their website) are still displaying the old upload rate. However, this may change once the official announcement has been issued. Now all they need to do is give VMB customers access to the new 1Gbps tier and, ideally, a better router than the Hitron device they offer.
Separately, VMB customers who still have one of the operator’s older phone services (we assume they mean the analogue copper service – now considered obsolete), have been informed that this will be withdrawn from use on 31st July 2021. An alternative IP based (VoIP) phone service is being offered to replace it, although this may not work with some older connected devices (payment machines/EPOS terminals or security alarms etc.).
The operator is understood to be speaking with customers first in order to ensure that they’re ready for the switch, but there won’t be a delay to the change, so if you’re not ready then you could be left disconnected. Further details here.
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UPDATE 21st June 2021
VMB has today issued an official announcement on the speed boost, which confirms what we reported above. The upgrade will mean “businesses working in more than 100,000 locations across the country are set to receive a speed boost … at no extra charge.”
Jo Bertram, Managing Director of Business & Wholesale at VMO2, said:
“We’re supercharging business broadband with a completely free upgrade that will help SMEs bounce back from the pandemic.
After a very challenging year, connectivity has been core to survival for many small businesses, with most uploading and downloading more than ever before. As part of our mission to upgrade the UK we want to help get our nation’s entrepreneurs back on their feet, starting with a free digital boost.”
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, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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I haven’t received an email from VMB about this but did have the Hitron reboot overnight and now have 500/50
Still pitiful upload speed’s.
Good stuff. Sounds like progress.
I disagree with the pitiful upload speeds, the are spot on and I’m on the 13 static ip’s however the download speeds are questionable, but then I struggle to find a speed test that will give a true speedtest, either way the only communication I’ve had from VMB about any downtime is on 5th July annoyingly in business hours, however I reported on TBB yesterday my hitron modem rebooted and uploads increased, while it’s great it’s not professionally to my customers.
one thing I’ve always had issues with VMB and even BTB is the lack of communication these companies provide to business customers.
Comments about the ‘pitiful upload speeds’ makes me laugh.
Most of the country aren’t getting speeds about 80/20 and here’s Virgin providing 500/50.
2.5 x the upload from BT and you’re whining about it. Of course, we’d all like higher upload speeds but what are you doing that requires higher than 50 megabits per second? That’s 6.25 megabytes a second! You can upload an entire gigabytes’ worth of data in under 3 minutes. A lot of people in the U.K. aren’t even able to receive 50mbps down, let alone up!
Some people…
Pitiful for consumer, even more so for businesses.
In a cloud world of backups, content from cloud drives, its about time VM upped their game on Upload speeds. I’m fine with the download speed (well, once DocSIS 3.1 and latency patch done to improve latency).
Virgin Media double upload speeds on most business tiers.
Random on ISPR informs it’s time they up their game.
Not quite that simple.
Time to wake up and switch to 5G, cancel vm today.
I hate cancel culture, it’s the WORST THING EVER! Defund Virgin Media! CANCEL THEM NOW!!!!
Hey we could be cousins.
I was on Voom 500 up until a few weeks ago and haven’t renewed the package.. the GRE tunnel implementation for static IP users is still poor as the speeds were all over the place, from the speed test samples i have taken from 2019 to today, when the hiltron router was set to DHCP and static IPs. Am on their VM residential 1 gig package at the same price as the voom 500 .. the speeds are consistent and we don’t get any drop outs.
Anyone else still experiencing issues with static IPs ??
I have the static routed subnet option from VM Business the 5 IP option – in the very early days I was affected by the performance issues they had, but that was resolved and since then no issues at all,
Static 5 IPs here too, no issues with the GRE tunnel, full speed up and down at any time of the day, no latency issues either.
I rarely see any speed issues with our 500 meg package and 5 static IPs but the GRE tunnels do cause hefty packet fragmentation and as such VoIP does not seem to be happy on it and occasionally we get websites which don’t load properly (mainly office 365 admin portal)
Maybe hope for consumers side, or when they fully upgrade to 3.1 we might get an increase
Strange how most UK ISPs don’t consider upload speeds important enough, unlike e.g. Verizon Fiber in the State. Don’t people here use Cloud-based upload services?
Because it’s not actually fibre, it’s still cable… and even if you have FTTP coverage with them they use DOCSIS over fibre so same packages.
Yes, that is right FTTP from Virgin is still like HFC or fttc, as the Fibre
only goes up to the Omni Box
and then it is coax from the Omni Box
to everywhere else in the home
What do you think Openreach FTTP is? It goes to the ONT and then ethernet from there
@Sebbb is incorrect.
It isn’t HFC. Virgin’s HFC is akin to Openreach’s FTTC. Virgin’s FTTP is ‘full fibre’. Whatever comes after the terminator point/converter is irrelevant. All ‘full fibre’ providers have some sort of termination point on/or in the house that then converts the signal to something useable. Virgin are simply doing it that way so they don’t have to have two sets of gear. Eventually you’ll be seeing 100mbps+ on their upload which will more than satiate most people.
Not really. The ISPs are following their customers’ demands.
People start purchasing based on upload rather than price things would change.
The US market is completely different.
Carl don’t compare ancient UK with United states haha.
Gary, your maths is wrong 80/20 has 25% of the download as upload speed. VM only has 10%. So which service has the better ratio?