Prices start at £14 a month for the 10Mbit/s package
Virgin promises sweeping broadband upgrade
/v3-uk/news/1947464/virgin-promises-sweeping-broadband-upgrade
24 Feb 2009, Ian Williams , V3
Virgin Media has announced plans to upgrade millions of its 2Mbit/s subscribers to a 10Mbit/s service, thanks to upgrades currently underway across its network which are expected to triple its data carrying capacity.
The company will provide a trio of fibre optic services, comprising "up to 10Mbit/s", "up to 20Mbit/s" and, for those who can receive it, the "up to 50Mbit/s" service launched in December.
Virgin Media said that the new baseline service supports the government's Digital Britain policy agenda, and forms part of the investment in its Next Generation Broadband platform.
"Our entry-level broadband product is now twice the speed of comparable services and, with our new 10-20-50 range, we clearly offer the highest quality broadband service in the UK," said Neil Berkett, chief executive of Virgin Media.
Berkett said this announcement, combined with the recently launched 50Mbit/s service, highlights the insatiable demand for high-speed broadband services following the surge in rich media, streaming video and online gaming.
Prices for the new service start at £14 a month for the slowest package, when taken with a Virgin phone line at £11 per month. Migrations are expected to start in May.
Virgin Media was recently slammed in a report by comparison site Moneysupermarket.com as the second worst offender for stinging customers with unexpected charges, including for features such as paper billing.
© Incisive Media Investments Limited 2010, Published by Incisive Financial Publishing Limited, Haymarket House, 28-29 Haymarket, London SW1Y 4RX, are companies registered in England and Wales with company registration numbers 04252091 & 04252093
Do you agree?
another lie from virgin?
for anyone thinking of trying virgin media's services I really wouldnt bother...
we have had serious problems with the speed of our connection ever since it was installed, when asked what they advise it was to upgrade your package..
guess what 10Mbit package and at peek dial up speeds, 30+ second page loads! Thats great fiber optic speeds (another lie)
Posted by paul carey, 24 Feb 2009
"clearly offer the highest quality broadband service in the UK"!!!!
ok, so it has the fastest connection speed, but speed doesn't mean quality.
I was on Telewest with no problems for years, then Virgin Media took over. they had a network problem for over 2.5 months in my area and never fixed it. Problem resulted in internet being down most of the day and night. I complained and complained, but they never fixed it. so i moved to another provider. no problems since.
Shame really as Telewest's support department were superb, but virgin "offshored" it to an indian call center that never ever read the notes on the system. They even called me to find out why i had cancelled the service!!!! I said read the notes then ask the same question.
I am a network engineer myself and if i had a customer with network problems for 2.5 months i would be in serious trouble.
Posted by Dave2318, 24 Feb 2009
virgin promises
Totally dishonest from the start, full of promises, never gone a week without some problem, they should be shut down. Had to have their phone installed because they dont accept skype phone and so that I could contact them almost daily. This was the worst idea I ever had to save money. Now they say my contract for the whole lot begins from my (much later)phone installation. 2 mbit download and 180-250 kbit upload-when it works. Original claim was unrestricted etc compared to BT, what a joke, 4pm is when its worst, when the kids get on the internet fron school, log off and you cant get back on. I paid £25 for install and "engineer" did nothing except left me with a "setup disk", another engineer (friend) said they throw away the disk normally, and set it up for me (1 month later- without their help).
Posted by Maz, 24 Feb 2009
And yet you won't see those speeds
Virgin still oversells its speeds just like every other ISP, and their bandwidth throttling mean you can't make the most of the speeds for anything other than small, isolated large-file downloading...
I'd steer clear of it if you plan on moving a lot of material between your computer and the internet; Virgin will give you good speeds but in my experience not long enough a time to complete your task
Posted by Ziso Regondo, 24 Feb 2009
more money
I am happy with my current 'slow' broadband. The new 'upgrade' is going to cost me more money. Like all 'upgrades' you don't get something for nothing.
Posted by kevin, 24 Feb 2009
Higher Speed??
These higher speeds are only due to the fact BT do all there core switching on there second to non network!! AND BT Openreach are just about to start working on the Virgin copper network that has been allowed to fall into a mess!
Posted by IT bloke, 25 Feb 2009
Speed are a nonsense
STM Subscriber Traffic Management renders these speeds irrelevant. Great marketing ploy - sell people something they really don't need for a premium price then throttle the connection so that the infrastructure can cope. it can only happen in the UK
Posted by R Smyth, 25 Feb 2009
Another smoke and mirrors Job from Virgin
We were "upgraded" from 4Mb to 10 recently. Can we go back please. It is useless.
Every day for two hours at least we are unable to acess any pages due to poor snr ratio. Nothing is being done until more users on the same street complain. Trouble is there are only 4 and the others dont use the net apart from mail and at weekends.
In the good old days of Blueyonder this would have been resolved rapidly but they did it the wrong way round and used NTL's customer dis service systems instead of the blue yonder systems
Posted by Gary Burton, 25 Feb 2009
What upgrade ?
The story says that they are going to upgrade me from 2MB to 10MB well I am still waiting. I speed tested my connection and I am still only getting 2MB even though they raised the price. So much for the promised upgrade.
Posted by scouseivan, 07 May 2009
Upgrade 2mb to 10mb
I keep hearing about this "Upgrade" for us poor people who can only afford 2mb. Will SOMEONE at Virgin please advise WHEN we may expct to receive this service ?
Posted by Francis Cokayne, 28 May 2009
Need to register ?
was just in my VM account and there is a link/click here saying that I need to register for the 2MB to 10MB upgrade. Does not seem to get done automatically, maybe that is why you are still on 2MB (as am I currently, since I just found it ...)
Posted by assekarn, 14 Jun 2009
2mbit to 10
I have not heard of this offer as i have been trying to upgrade but when you go online it only offers the packages. I do not want the phone of the tv i just to upgrade the broadband but the web site does not offer this, I would like to know when we wil be receiving the upgrade.
Posted by Debbie Marks, 17 Jul 2009
2nd worst offender ( re;broadband charges)
COME BACK TELEWEST ALL IS FORGIVEN!
SERVICE WAS HACKED TO BITS BUT STILL DELIVERED
VIRGIN IS ALL HYPE AND BLAH ADVERTISING ALL I WANT!
IS SOMEONE TO ANSWER THE PHONE! NOT HIDE BEHIND OPTIONS & ROBOTS WHILE BLASTING YOU WITH INANE CRAP MUSIC WHILE ON HOLD!
Posted by michael john oborny, 16 Jul 2009