Virgin Media to push out nimble new broadband speeds
Telco to burn £110m on shoving 120Mbps through fibre
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Virgin Media is planning to whip its broadband into a wild gallop in a £110m upgrade that will produce a top speed of 120Mbps.
The company won't be charging its existing customers for the new speeds, and folks who have an old modem incapable of handling the super-fast internet – such as those on the 20Mbps package – will get a new one free.
The smokin' hot broadband speeds were enough to prompt praise from UK prime minister David Cameron, who reckons the upgrade will boost the economy. One of the government's ambitions is to have sizzling internet available for 90 per cent of homes in the UK by 2015.
The upgrade, which will start in February and take 18 months to complete, will turn Virgin's 10Mbps package to 20Mbps; 20Mbps and 30Mbps packages to 60Mbps; 50Mbps package to 100Mbps; and its 100Mbps package to 120Mbps. Technically speaking, the new services aren't going to require any major work on the network, just a wee bit of engineering at the hubs to get its DOCSIS 3.0 network to bond more channels together.
Virgin still has plenty of space on its network, so loads of surfers using up to 120Mbps shouldn't be a problem. The company has previously tested speeds of 200Mbps and 1.5Gbps on the same fibre.
The provider spends millions every year to maintain and expand its network – the legacy wiring from NTL and Telewest. The only other service provider in the country with any super-fast ambitions in action is BT, which is in the process of rolling out a fibre network across the country. This means smaller ISPs such as Talk Talk, BSkyB and O2 will have to consider investing in their own networks or risk being left behind. ®
COMMENTS
Re : Never mind the top speeds
"What will the Average speeds be? I am very sceptical about this. Just sounds like a PR exercise to get more Punters to sign up."
IME, when you're not being throttled, VM speeds are typically those quoted - i.e. 10Mb/s is 10Mb/s, 20Mb/s is 20Mb/s. That said, i've not had the 50Mb/s service or higher, nor talked in any detail to anyone who has, so that may not hold for those services - be interested to hear from people who are on those.
Well according to Ofcom...
...so you can take it or leave it, but their average speeds are pretty much on a par with the advertised.
I'm on their 50mb package, and I get a pretty consistent rate very close to or spot on that.
I've never had 'jitteryness' but that may be down to which part of their network you are on. Generally when I have that sort of problem it's down to wi-fi problems. From what I understand the Telewest network is better than the NTL part, but that might be historical and no longer true.
I'm really looking forward to being bumped to 100mb. Although with a mostly wireless network I'm not sure how much use it will be to me.
It reminds me of the good old days of Telewest when they used to bump your speed every year or so, just because they could. We went from 1mb/s (this was a long while ago) to about 5mb in the space of a few years.
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