Virgin Media turns on 100Mbit/s service

Virgin Media's much-vaunted 100Mbit/s broadband service has gone live in four locations across the UK.

People in Heckmondwike, Farnborough, Colchester and Barry will have access to upstream speeds of 10Mbit/s for £35 a month when bought with a phone line, or £45 a month as a standalone product.

Virgin Media claimed that the 100Mbit/s service will allow customers to download a music album in five seconds and a 5GB high-definition movie in roughly seven minutes.

The package includes an 802.11n router that can handle speeds up to 400Mbit/s in a move designed to future-proof Virgin Media's network for subsequent rollouts.

The company expects further locations to be turned on throughout 2011 and into 2012.

The switching on of the service further cements Virgin Media's position as the UK's fastest internet service provider.

BT's Infinity service can currently offer up to 40Mbit/s, and the telco has plans to offer 100Mbit/s services in the future. BT is involved with getting fibre to the final third of the UK, announcing a £132m rollout in Cornwall in September among others.

BT has also recently announced the five towns leading its Race to Infinity competition in which communities can win an exchange upgrade to benefit from this service.

The five communities leading the competition are Blewbury in Oxfordshire, Caxton in Cambridgeshire, Castleton in Newport, Madingley in Cambridgeshire and Whitchurch in Hampshire.