Virgin Media have revealed that they intend on increasing current speeds on their networks to 100Mpbs by the end of 2010. Expressing that the service would be “very close to advertised headline speeds,” they added that in some area’s they would even be able to offer customers up to 200Mpbs.
Speaking of the decision to roll out the faster networks, chief executive of Virgin Media Neil Berkett explained “There is nothing we can’t do with our fibre-optic cable network, and the upcoming launch of our flagship 100Mbps service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience.” He added that their ability to use cables instead of ADSL lines would allow high speeds to download albums of music in five seconds.
Currently with 4.1million customers and having increased consumer base by 46,000 in the last three months, Virgin Media have not yet stated the regions in which they intend to roll out the faster speeds. Meanwhile, BT who have 25per cent more users than Virgin and are also increasing more quickly with 102,000 subscribers added in the past three months minimised the announcement, saying “Virgin are playing catch-up as customers are already using 100Mbps over BT’s network. It is fair to say we are bigger than them and we are growing faster too.” However, latest figures for Virgin show a year upon year leap of 3.3per cent in revenue, growing to £980m, with average customer price increase coming in at 5.8per cent.
