Cable giant Virgin Media has today made its new 100Mbps downstream (10Mbps upload) broadband package available to the public. The service is naturally limited by its initial launch coverage and can currently only reach the following areas: Heckmondwike, Farnborough, Colchester and Barry, S Wales.

Coverage will improve as Virgin Media gradually extends its new "ultrafast" network throughout 2011, with the full roll-out being set to complete around mid-2012; at this point it will have become available to approximately 50% of the UK (13 million homes).

In terms of price, customers will pay £45 per month for a standalone service (just the broadband) or £35 per month when bundled with a £12.24 per month Virgin Phone Line (Phone M). The standard installation will also set you back £40.

Virgin Media 100Mbps Package
* 100Mbps Downloads
* 10Mbps Uploads
* Unlimited downloading (free of any heavy Traffic Management limits)
* Free internet security (anti-virus/spam/spyware and firewall)
* Free super-fast wireless N router
* Unlimited weekend calls to UK landlines and Virgin mobiles if you take a Virgin phone line.
* Unlimited online storage with automatic backup
* Free photos (Print up to 100 photos for free every month)
* Free email (10 addresses)

It's fair to say that Virgin Media is really ahead of the game with this package. Certainly some niche operators do have faster symmetric 100Mbps FTTH solutions, although these have extremely limited coverage. By contrast Virgin's service will reach half of the entire country.

Virgin Media is also continuing to trial 200Mbps download speeds in customers' homes, although we probably won't see that surfacing until late 2012 or 2013 (depending on demand). They also have trials of up to 20Mbps upstream speeds running, so we can probably expect more upgrades in the future.

Meanwhile BT is gearing up to launch its 110Mbps Fibre-to-the-Premises ( FTTP / FTTH ) based fibre optic broadband solution next year, yet it will take BT until summer 2012 just to reach a relatively small 2.5 Million UK homes. Most homes will instead by served by its slower and more restrictive 40Mbps FTTC solution, rising to 66% coverage by 2015.