Virgin Media is to spend £110m on the 18-month upgrade programme.
The company says that those who subscribe to its up to 10Mb service – 74% of its 4.1m internet subscribers – will see their speed double to 20Mb.
Those on its up to 20Mb tier, 12% of the total subscriber base, will see their speed tripled to 60Mb.
The 9% who take 30Mb broadband will rise to 60Mb.
And the 5% who take services from 50Mb to 100Mb will rise to a speed of between 100Mb and 120Mb.
The top-tier speed – at 120Mb it will be the quickest offered in the UK – will enable customers to download a high-definition movie in about five minutes.
"As people are increasingly doing more online, and getting connected to the internet with lots of different devices, having a fast, reliable broadband service should not be a luxury," said Neil Berkett, the chief executive of Virgin Media.
"We want to make sure that consumers have access to the best value broadband service and that means a superfast connection."
Virgin Media intends to mostly fund the programme with the remaining £100m of the proceeds of the sale of its 50% stake in UKTV to US TV company Scripps.
21 comments:
At the risk of sounding pedantic the term 'double' will surely only apply to some (OK, most) of its customers rather than to all of its customers. I currently have 100Mb and there will only be gaining a 20% not a 100% increase :-)
BTW I recently upgraded from 50Mb to 100Mb which cost me a pretty penny I can tell you. Maybe I should have stayed at 50Mb after all and got the free upgrade to 100Mb for free!
Ah, the price we pay to stay ahead of the pack...
OK, I spoke too soon (isn't that always the way?)
In the Speed Doubling FAQ: "The amount you pay only changes if you are already on 100Mb. If you are, then we’ll shortly be giving you a discount on your monthly subscription."
Sorry for hogging everyone's bandwidth.
This is good news. I'm currently on 20Mb and had been thinking about going up to the 30Mb but I will now wait for the upgrade. However one of the reasons I didn't change was that I would have to chnage my modem to the Superhub that they provide for the faster speeds and from what I've read it's a pretty shoddy piece of kit so I hope they sort that out in time. I don't know what other people's experiences are.
I am on 30mb broadband - I wonder if I'll get a reduction in cost due to 20mb customers getting upgraded to 60mb along me me???
Doubt it.
mattbuk:
20mb and 30mb customers pay the same price already.
Do they? I didn't know that.
Seems a bit pointless paying for 20mb when you can have 30mb for no extra charge then.
What about us on 10mb?
Oxfordmark:
Read all of this page
http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/Announcements/We-re-doubling-our-customers-broadband-speeds/m-p/958425/highlight/true#M63
Does the increase in bb speeds also mean an increase in the TIVO 10mb
MAB:
No.
http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/35359701-post7.html
re 20M vs 30M speeds... same price different modem! BUT you have to pay to activate the superhub!
(I got mine on a deal which meant they paid me the install fee back over 6 months - suggest you watch for the deals before you choose to upgrade)
Re superhub being poor! Yep it is and I could hang mine in seconds of its install! Its a special Netgear router which you either love or hate. Fortunatly you can have it in modem mode and put your own decent router at the centre of things.
Richard said:
(I got mine on a deal which meant they paid me the install fee back over 6 months - suggest you watch for the deals before you choose to upgrade)
I got a similar deal where i got £5 Off 30Mb broadband For 7 Months Which has just Ended On the 4th of january 2012.
Great news, until I put my postcode into the upgrade checker and found out I won't be upgraded to 100mb until February 2013 at the earliest!
wait and see as virginmedia will be upgrading your bb and you wont have an option to agree or disagree but as part of your terms and conditions virgin must provide you with equioment capable of delivering you said speed to your house -so in real words vm will send you a superhub foc as part of standard svs and facilities -
re getting the router free - you do already! you pay for the activation of the router.
re geting activation free... don't hold your breath, I bet you will wait a while before they send it and activate it... 18 months+
and a lot happens in 18months in IT terms.
Good news. 100MB is already available in my area. Not sure I need it though, to be honest.
The new postcode checker is now out.
http://doublespeed.virginmedia.com
It says i will be upgraded between April-July this year
I find this great, but I couldn't help notice BT getting it wrong. On the BBC site:
"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."
BT's fastest available speed to the majority of its customers is currently 40Mbps."
Doesn't BT realise that it is indeed THEY who are trying to play catch-up with VM?
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