Virgin Media Business UK Preps Symmetric Speed Broadband Plans

Broadband ISP Virgin Media Business (VMB) looks as if it might soon catch up with their consumer division. ISPreview has spotted that the provider are preparing to introduce three new packages for small business customers, which will all offer symmetric speeds via their latest XGS-PON based Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

At present Virgin Media’s XGS-PON powered symmetric speed full fibre network typically reflects a mix of 2.6 million FTTP lines via nexfibre’s infrastructure, plus several million more that have been covered within Virgin’s own network as part of their ongoing upgrade programme for Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) areas. The combined FTTP base reaches 8.7 million UK premises, but a few of those are still on older RFoG technology.

However, despite Virgin Media’s consumer division launching symmetric speeds of up to 2Gbps in the new XGS-PON areas, Virgin Media Business has yet to catch up and is still offering a range of older asymmetric speed plans with maximum download speeds of up to 1Gbps (the max upload rate is 100Mbps). Outside those areas (off-net) they also offer “Daisy Full Fibre” plans, which appear to harness Openreach’s FTTP lines.

The good news is that small business (SME) customers looking to join VMB should soon gain access to three new symmetric speed packages via their latest XGS-PON network – Voom 200 Full Fibre X (max profile speed of 272Mbps), Voom Gig1 Full Fibre X (1,138Mbps) and Voom Gig2 Full Fibre X (2,085Mbps). Credits to one of our readers (Clive) for helping to uncover these.

Sadly, VMB declined to provide any details, such as when the new packages will be officially launched or whether they’d initially only be available to those covered by nexfibre’s network.

A spokesperson for VMB told ISPreview:

“Those packages are not publicly sold at this time, but we’re working to offer the best products for our customers and will be in touch with more news to share when possible.”

The new packages will of course need to be supported by a new router, although at present we don’t know whether they’ll harness a modified version of the Hub 5x or go with something completely new.