Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/28/virgin_l_upgrade/
Virgin Media dishes out free bandwidth boost
Upgrade for 'L' punters
Posted in Broadband, 28th January 2008 11:52 GMT
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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 [1] 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 [2]. ®