Virgin Media have launched a new 50Mbps broadband service to it’s range. The service, priced at £51 per month standalone or £31 when taken with an £11 phone line, is 30Mbps faster than Virgin’s existing top-tier service. It has been in development for over a year and represents a key plank of CEO Neil Berkett’s plans for Virgin to exploit its cable technology to win in the broadband market instead of seeking to compete with Sky’s premium television offering.
There will be no download caps or traffic management – where downloads are slower during peak hours – on the 50Mbps service. This is great news for future of streaming for movies and music which can also be distributed throughout the house.
Customers who already subscribe to Virgin Media’s cable broadband service will need a new cable modem compatible with EuroDOCSIS 3 – a newer version of the specification that governs how data is carried over the cable infrastructure – to upgrade to the 50Mbps tier. The modem, along with an 802.11n wireless router and USB dongle, is included in the 50Mbps package.
Add to this that BT has also come forward with plans to trial a 40Mbps service during the summer of 2009 the 2Mbps basic download speed could be a thing of the past.