Virgin Media planning 100Mbit/s service

Virgin Media saw quarterly revenues rise by 3.3 per cent

Virgin Media is to launch a commercial 100Mbit/s broadband service later this year, and has plans to trial a 200Mbit/s service.

The company made the announcement as part of its 2009 fourth-quarter results, which showed a 3.3 per cent rise in revenue to £980m.

Virgin Media said that it had increased the number of homes on its 20Mbit/s or higher services by 45 per cent, and had grown its cable broadband customer base by 6,500 since the fourth quarter of 2008.

Neil Berkett, chief executive at Virgin Media, claimed that the company had grown the size and quality of its customer base, and that many customers had bought higher value products in response to a more varied portfolio.

"We are laying the foundations for long-term growth. Virgin Media's cable network will, for the foreseeable future, provide an unparalleled platform for delivering successive generations of new and innovative services," he said.

Virgin Media will be hoping that the figures signal the start of a big year. The firm launched Virgin Media Business earlier this month, and Berkett said at the time that he was confident that the service would prove attractive.

"We hope that by rebranding to Virgin Media Business we can expand our customer base and offer a viable and compelling alternative to BT," he said.