Virgin broadband “twice as fast as anyone else”
November 12, 2013
Virgin Media is launching ultrafast 152Mb broadband speeds in 2014 which it claims will be twice as fast as any other widely available service. Such speeds will be available to the 12.5 million homes across the UK served by Virgin Media’s fibre optic cable network.
After already doubling the broadband of over four million homes, Virgin Media is embarking on another ambitious programme to also increase customers’ speeds by at least 20Mb depending on their current service – a boost that’s far greater than the national average connection.
Virgin Media’s chief executive officer, Tom Mockridge, said: “As people connect more things simultaneously to the Internet more often, they need powerful broadband with the bandwidth to deliver a great experience for everyone in the home. That connection is what we deliver with our unrivalled network. We are boosting speeds again and ensuring our customers can get even more value from their Virgin Media subscription. Our top speed will be twice as fast as BT and all the others reliant on their old copper telephony infrastructure as we extend our lead as Britain’s ultrafast broadband provider.”
The new 152Mb top speed means users can download an HD movie in less than four minutes and an entire music album in four seconds – but the ultrafast service will really come into its own when people get online at the same time and need of plenty of Internet bandwidth.
The boost keeps Virgin Media broadband a step ahead of the growing needs of increasingly simultaneously connected UK households. Families are already streaming entertainment on computers, tablets, smartphones and connected TVs whilst growing businesses from home, sharing news and views over social media and taking on the world with online games consoles, meaning the demand for greater bandwidth continues to increase.
Virgin Media’s broadband boosts have been recognised by Ofcom as helping to double the number of UK households benefiting from superfast broadband since 2012. Another 838,000 more households have already signed up to get 30Mb or faster with Virgin Media in the first nine months of 2013.