Virgin Media has announced plans to upgrade its mid-range "L" broadband from maximum 4Mbit/s downstream to maximum 10Mbit/s at no extra cost to customers.

The upgrade will start in late February on a region-by-region basis, and will take until late summer to complete.

Upstream speeds will also get a boost to 512Kbit/s, from the current 384Kbit/s. Peak time bandwidth-throttling policies will still apply for heavy users.

"L" users got the thin end of the wedge when Virgin relaxed those traffic limits (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/10/virgin_media_throttling_update/) in December. Today's free speed upgrade announcement should help redress the balance.

It's part of moves by Virgin to position itself as the premium broadband provider ahead of BT's 24Mbit/s upgrade, which won't be complete until 2011. By the end of this year Virgin's fastest cable package will tip the needle to 50Mbit/s downstream.

The firm's recently-installed boss Neil Berkett is set to speak tomorrow at a second government conference on improving UK internet infrastructure. There's growing calls for action in order to compete with international rivals who have taken the lead on next-generation access. The first meeting was in November (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/22/westminster_broadband_eforum/). ®

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