Cable giant Virgin Media UK appears to be seeing a change of fortunes on its recently refreshed Virgin.net (Virgin National) ADSL2 ('up to' 20Mbps) broadband service, which is available to consumers who reside outside of the operators cable coverage. Demand for the updated products has apparently been so high that some subscribers are facing longer than expected delays with service activation.

The enhanced Virgin.net products were launched to much fanfare at the start of August, promising faster download speeds of 'up to' 20Mbps ( ADSL2+ ), voice line rental and a pledge to "avoid unachievable speed claims" (original news). The Register reports that demand for the new service was so high that Virgin even ran into stock supply problems with their broadband routers.


It had been hoped that the product improvements might represent a new drive by Virgin Media to correct old mistakes with its Virgin.net service, which has in the past suffered from all kinds of performance and support woes. Indeed the ADSL service has been literally bleeding customers each quarter for quite some time now.