Virgin Media launches 50Mbit/s broadband

 

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Posted on 15 Dec 2008 at 14:47

Virgin Media has launched its "next-generation" 50Mbit/s cable broadband service - a speed more than double that of the current maximum ADSL speed of 24Mbit/s. The company said that the service was in the response to the increase in demand for data.

"Data consumption increased by 70 per cent this year," said Neil Burkett, CEO of Virgin Media. "Cisco [the networking company] believes that by 2010, data consumption will increase by 100 per cent."

As well as the sheer amount of data that people download, Virgin Media also believes that it's the speed that they expect to get it that will drive uptake. With 50Mbit/s broadband the company claims that you can download an album in 11 seconds, a TV show in around one minute and an HD movie in 15 minutes.

This massive boost in broadband speed is available because of Virgin Media's high-speed fibre-optic network - the technology that BT is looking to deploy for its 21st Century Network - and improvements to the infrastructure. Further increases in speed should soon become available, as the cable provider aims to free up one-third of its network's bandwidth by turning off its analogue TV service next year.

Virgin Media aims to offer 50Mbit/s broadband to all of its customers by the middle of next year: by the end of 2008 around 40 per cent should have the option; the remaining 60 per cent of customers will be turned on during the first half of 2009.

The service will cost £51 per month without a telephone line and £35 a month with an £11-a-month telephone line (£46 a month), although further discounts are available if you opt to take the TV service at the same time.

All 50Mbit/s broadband connections come with an 802.11n wireless router and a £50 set up fee, which includes an engineer's visit to your home to set it up. Virgin Media sees this as an important step in providing a service that customers will be happy with.

"We see this as an end-to-end experience," said Burkett. "An engineer in the home ensures this."
The 802.11n router is in order to ensure that wireless connections have enough bandwidth to use the broadband at its full speed. However, we're a little sceptical that this will be the case in all homes. It's a problem that's likely to get worse in the future as Virgin Media looks to release even faster services. These probably aren't far, off, as Burkett said: "We could have released 100Mbit/s broadband today."

We've been promised a trial version of the service when it's available in our area, so we'll bring you a full review, including a detailed analysis of the bundled router's performance, as soon as we can.

Author: David Ludlow