Virgin Media is doubling and even tripling its broadband speeds. More than 4 million customers will get a browsing boost over the next two years.
Customers currently paying for up to 10Mbps will now double up to 20Mbps, while those on 20Mbps will triple and 30Mbps double to 60Mbps. 50Mbps customers will now benefit from 100Mbps, and Virgin's top speed will increase to 120Mbps from 100Mbps.
Upgrades start in February and should be complete by the middle of 2013.
Prime Minister David Cameron welcomed the move as "a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the Internet". The government plans to have superfast broadband in 90 per cent of the country by 2015.
Broadband speeds vary enormously across the country -- check out this eye-opening Ofcom map of broadband speeds, with rural areas particularly poorly served -- but Virgin consistently leads the pack. Unlike most exaggerated claims in ISP adverts, Virgin Media is often faster than advertised.
Even if you do have a decent connection, browsing speed also varies widely during the course of a day, with speeds dropping by a third in the evening, with users of services such as iPlayer and now Netflix eating up bandwidth.
Broadband wonk Ernest Doku from uSwitch.com said the news is "a real breakthrough for the UK's broadband infrastructure, and a decisive step towards the country having a service that can compete with the best in Europe".
"However," Doku warned, "it's worth bearing in mind that Virgin still only has roughly 20 per cent of the UK broadband market, and without similar investment across the board there is a danger that a two-tier broadband market will develop."
Are you a Virgin customer, or will you be switching based on this news? How fast is fast enough? Speed on down to the comments or tell us what you think on our Facebook page.
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Comments 9
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anonymous 11 January, 2012 12:36
Great news but latency could be reduced for gaming.
I am currently on Virgin's 50Mbps package, and the ping rate fluctuates between 20 and 40.
From what I understand, France is way ahead in this field for having low ping rates and a better online gaming experience.
anonymous 11 January, 2012 12:50
Go for BT Infinity, at the moment most get 30-40mb, but they are upgrading to double this over the next couple of years
No crippling of P2P and Usenet at peak times, and I usually get 18-20ms pings
anonymous 11 January, 2012 13:27
BT Infinity is not yet available in a lot of areas including mine.
Alimus 11 January, 2012 13:51
In response to Virgin Media's plans, BT said: "It is no surprise to see that Virgin are following our lead by doubling speeds.
"We announced we would do this for our fibre products last autumn and so they are trying to catch up with us."
Really BT? Virgin are catching up to you?
I'd have thought that by having a headline speed of 3 x your quickest offering and a far better average speed they would be pulling away again.
anonymous 11 January, 2012 19:03
Virgin have decent speeds but the quality of the connection isn't all that great, ping isn't perfect and the jitter is actually quite high, like 10-50 all of the time...
anonymous 12 January, 2012 04:04
I'm on 30mb virgin and I get 33mb ping 5-15 jitter 0-1
anonymous 12 January, 2012 15:02
I'm on virgin 50MB fibre optic and the speeds are often quicker than advertised, On speedtest.net i often get 53MB.
Where as the ping is concerned, yes it maybe a bit higher then bt infinity but virgin offers 100mb tops, bt infinity gets nowhere near that.
No other company I know gives what they advertise, I have been on BT, AOL & Sky over the past couple of years. Where I'm meant to receive 20 I wouldn't get over 6-7.
Go Virgin!
anonymous 20 January, 2012 16:57
Hi I agree with the general feeling here - this is great news overall. My only gripe is that, according to the virgnmedia web-site, I will have to wait between 10 months and 18 months before it reaches my area. And no I don't live in an isolated rural community - I'm on the outskirts of a big city!
Presumably the same applies to lots of places. Why are they making such a great deal of it when it's so far away.
anonymous 28 January, 2012 20:14
A bit un fair that 10 mb will only get 20 mb while 20 and 30 get 60 surely 10 mb should be tripled