UK cable firm NTL today promised to make 10Mbps its standard broadband access speed, and to upgrade existing customers at no extra cost.

The first home surfers in the UK to receive the upgrade will be NTL's current 3Mbps broadband customers.

"By the end of this year they will have a connection of up to 10Mbps, while their usage allowance will increase from 30GB to 75GB per month," the company stated.

The move is part of a service revamp that creates a set of cable broadband products "up to 10Mbps as standard", with different inclusive bandwidth options to match usage plus a series of services with no traffic caps at different speeds.

NTL said that the roll out of its revamped product portfolio will be complete by the end of 2006. It added that there are no plans to change monthly prices but some customers will need to upgrade their modems.

The cable firm said that moving customers to a 10Mbps broadband service is part of a wider progression towards services with even higher speeds and greater bandwidth.

NTL claimed that its fibre-rich network means that broadband speeds of between 30Mbps and 50Mbps are possible through DOCSIS 3.0 (cable) or ADSL 2+ (copper).

Simon Duffy, chief executive at NTL, claimed that the move puts the company "well ahead" of any other broadband provider in the UK.

"Moving 1.5 million customers to a connection of up to 10Mbps is a major initiative," he said. "However, we have full confidence in our ability to complete this programme in 2006 by leveraging our next-generation platform."