Virgin Media is set to turn up the dial on its cable network, offering users speeds of up to 100Mbps (megabits per second).
It aims to provide the service to over 50% of the UK by mid-2012, beginning in December with 200,000 homes in London, the Home Counties and West Yorkshire.
It is the latest move in the race to bring super-fast broadband services to the UK.
It will give new impetus to rival BT’s super-fast broadband rollout.
On launch some 12.7 million homes will be able to get the service, and pre-registration starts today.
Virgin Media
Neil Berkett, CEO of Virgin Media said, “The launch of our 100Mb service is a significant milestone in the UK’s broadband evolution and a vivid illustration of the power of our next generation network. From establishing the UK’s first ever broadband service in 2000 to the launch of 100Mb in 2010, in the space of just ten years, Virgin Media has led the greatest developments in digital Britain. The world of possibilities that broadband will enable is set to explode and we’re excited about the innovations we can bring to consumers in the next decade.”
If that is not enough, Virgin Media also had David Cameron on hand to gush about broadband, when probably he should have been doing better things.
The Prime Minister said, “We want to see super-fast broadband brought to people’s homes and businesses right across the country and this exciting news takes us a step closer towards reaching that goal.”
Virgin Media
Virgin Media said that the service will let users download a music album in five seconds, a TV show in thirty seconds and a high quality movie – we haven’t seen one of those in years – in ninety seconds, and a high definition one in seven minutes. While we assume that Virgin Media is talking about doing this through the legitimate channels, but it is, again, still pretty fast.
According to Berkett, in trials of its high speed services consumers showed a liking for fast Internet connections, and did indeed consume a lot of media while using it.
He added, “We have already seen a massive uptake in the number of customers watching video rich services and bandwidth hungry high definition programmes and clips. We are now in a world where people want the best connectivity with whatever screen they are using and those service providers that aren’t able to deliver this will simply be left behind.”
Downloads are one thing though, and Virgin Media is also offering a decent 10Mb upload speed as well.
The first areas to get the service, which will be available to around 13 million homes, will be parts of London, the South East and Yorkshire.
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More than 10,000 people signed up to Virgin Media’s new 100Mb broadband service on the first day the cable company opened registration for the new product.
Virgin Media intends to roll out the 100Mb broadband service, will allow customers to download a TV show in 30 seconds or a music album in just five seconds, from December, starting with London, the south-east and Yorkshire. In the first 24 hours after opening pre-registration for the service on Wednesday, the company is understood to have had more than 10,000 sign-ups.
Earlier this week Virgin Media reported that it had reached 4.24m broadband customers, but just 700,000 opted for a 20Mb or 50Mb speed service. Despite the low overall number Virgin points out that this represents solid growth of 41% year on year.
Rivals have questioned the demand for faster services – Virgin’s 50Mb service has just 90,000 subscribers – but the company argues that in five to 10 years 1Gb could be commonplace.
“When we think the market is ready we will upgrade the network accordingly and launch products,” said the Virgin Media chief executive, Neil Berkett. “The brilliant thing is with the scale and power of our network we could run 400Mb today. [About] 100,000 lapped up 50Mb in the past 12 months; that gives an indication that the market is ready for 100Mb.”
The 100Mb service will initially be made available to a potential 200,000 homes and will be available to Virgin Media’s entire cable footprint, covering up to 12.7m homes, by mid-2012.
Berkett, who has referred to the 100Mb product as a “Ferrari” service in Virgin Media’s portfolio, said that the company is continuing to trial 200Mb and that a 400Mb service is being tested in labs.
Earlier this month Virgin struck a deal for the rights to use Speedy Gonzales, the hyperactive Mexican mouse from Looney Tunes cartoons, in a multimillion-pound TV ad campaign to promote its superfast broadband services of up to 100Mb.
Those expecting Virgin Media to upgrade existing customers for free are likely to be disappointed as a spokesperson for the ISP confirmed that there will be no automatic upgrade as it was the case in the past.
At the beginning of last year, Virgin Media automatically upgraded customers who were on its 2Mbps package to 10Mbps for free while back in 2007, it doubled the speed of its 10Mbps service and a year later swapped a 4Mbps line for a 10Mbps as it launched its new 50Mbps service.
This means that Virgin Media will be having four broadband tiers, with the 100Mbps taking over the 50Mbps at the top end of the scale.
It doesn’t mean however that Virgin Media will not phase out the 10Mbps service in the near future. After all, with much of Britain broadband still struggling to reach 8Mbps, there is little incentive, if any, for Virgin Media to flick that switch off.
BT has raised concerns that Virgin Media’s new 100Mbps broadband package is too expensive for the average British family.
While it admitted ‘all superfast broadband is good for the UK’ and it is ‘encouraging’ to see Virgin upgrading its network by 2012, BT touted its own plans too, emphasising it is already rolling out fibre broadband to around 17m homes and businesses.
It seems BT couldn’t help sticking the boot into its rival as it said: “It is good for UK plc that there will be another high speed network, albeit one that is isn’t open to other companies in the way BT’s is.”
However, BT’s real bone of contention seems to be the price of Virgin Media’s super speedy offering which starts at £45 a month.
“Take up is as important as availability however and so we would question why Virgin is charging such a premium. Their new service is more than twice the price of BT’s fibre product and so we are surprised by the high price when most family budgets are tight,” said BT.
While BT may have a point that the broadband speed comes at a price (as one might expect,) it has not revealed how much its eagerly anticipated 110Mbps package, available from next year, will cost.
It seems BT’s future speedy service may not be much cheaper than Virgin’s 100 Mbps offering if consumers consider BT’s current Infinity package which includes a 40Mbps download service, 10Mbps upload speed, line rental plus unlimited Wi-Fi minutes and costs £38.48.
Some savvy consumers might notice that the Infinity price is less than £7 cheaper than Virgin Media’s new service that is over double the speed, causing some to argue that BT’s money gripes may be a little rich.
However, a BT spokeswoman told HEXUS: “The point we are making is that Virgin seems to be charging an awful lot for 100Mbps when 40Mb or 50Mb offers enough speed to run several services simultaneously, which is supposedly the main benefit of 100Mbps.”
BT has also launched a free app to make its bulky paper phonebook available on Android smartphones.
The app lets users type in their address or their current location then find the type of business they need nearby. BT said it allows people to plan a trip and get contact details, description, directions, customer reviews and ratings.
It also has options to search for rated companies, see results on a map, get driving instructions, leave reviews and ratings, save contact details and contact a business directly via email, text or call with one click.