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Virgin raises stakes with 100Mbits/sec broadband rollout

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 25 Feb 2010 at 08:14

Virgin Media will begin rolling out 100Mbits/sec broadband across its network by the end of the year.

The company confirmed the speeds will be available to all customers on its cable network, though it would not reveal prices. "We'll have something to say on that closer to the rollout," a spokesperson said.

The increased speed comes courtesy of Virgin's DOCSIS 3 network, which is currently delivering speeds of up to 200Mbits/sec as part of a trial in Ashford, Kent.

Virgin intends to extend this trial to Coventry, where it will "focus on future technologies and applications, such as home teleconferencing and downloading HD programmes on-demand, which are likely to require fast speeds," a statement from the company revealed.

Virgin believes its DOCSIS 3 network is capable of reaching 400Mbits/sec.

The news piles further pressure on BT, which is in the midst of its own fibre rollout. The majority of BT's fibre lines will be up to 40Mbits/sec fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connections, although as many as 25% of the connections may now deliver fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) speeds of 100Mbit/sec.

Yesterday, sewer fibre firm, Fibrecity, announced the launch of its 100Mbits/sec broadband lines in Bournemouth, which are capable of bursting at speeds of up to 1Gbit/sec.

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User comments

Fiber for new places

If only the government made the telecoms add fiber to all new builds of office and homes. This would also force BT and other providers to get fiber to all the homes and office on route to all the new places.

By hadphild on 25 Feb 2010

Been there

"If only the government made the telecoms add fiber to all new builds of office and homes"

That was done by BT a few years back and abandoned, for a private company there is no immediate return on your investment. The only thing that happend was that miles of "dark fibre" was installed.

By JStairmand on 25 Feb 2010

Broadband Speeds vs EFM?

It's all well and good boasting faster sync speeds but will it be faster than a 10Mb EFM connection? Bearing in mind that a 10MB ethernet connection to the web is about £8k annually. Are we at a point where the 'speed' of the connection is useless without the contention and network to back it up? Otherwise why bother with corporate connections at all?

By ChrisSnape on 25 Feb 2010

Been there Reply

I can only see BT charging to much money for Fiber Products.

Also if the Fiber had been laided why not use it over copper. This would also allow some return. Its stupid that there is Dark fiber in a world were faster internet could greatly help all business (VPN, Voip, Video Conference, WAN, Cloud, Backup ETC).

I think its more down to education in large companies. Most engineers support Copper and not fiber.

By hadphild on 25 Feb 2010

Been there Reply

By hadphild on 25 Feb 2010

I am right in think that Virgin will be offering 100Mbits/sec with a fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) connection, but BT can only manage this speed with the a massively more expensive fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) connection.

If Virgin think that they can get up to 400Mbits/sec using a international standard, should this not be something BT could be looking at doing?

By jcraxton on 25 Feb 2010

The difference between Virgin's FTTC and BT's is that Virgin uses coaxial cable between the cabinet and the home whereas BT is relying on the ancient analogue copper in most cases.

By ChrisJoeWood on 25 Feb 2010

Sorry, I knew the differences in the cable being used. What I meant was, would it not be worth while BT running FTTC and then replacing they're old copper phone lines with newer copper, whether that be coaxial or another alternative. Surely 400Mbits/sec would be fast enough for many years. I guess it depends on what makes FTTP so expensive, putting in new cables between the cabinet and the premises, or the actual fibre cable itself.

I know that means that it will need to be upgraded again at some point in the future, but maybe fibre would be cheaper then, or we could jump it and put in the next better cable. Having said that, I recently got Virgin cable at home. There wasn't a cable between the cabinet and my home, but virgin did have a empty tube instead. It took them about 20 minutes to push a new cable down it to my home from the cabinet! With this method, they could very easily give me fibre to my home in the future, should I want it.

By jcraxton on 25 Feb 2010

BT - the Labyrinthine, Byzantine Monolith

I have just moved from a house where we had Virgin cable to an area they don't serve. With Virgin the whole ordering system, set up etc was easy and the service very reliable.

With BT having taken their Option 3 for 12 months I am hugely disappointed. The reliability of the connection is to be frank pants, it is slow, so slow in comparison. Their ordering system and the number of passwords, router id's etc etc is never ending. I was on the phone for 25 minutes (to a very pleasant and helpful person) just to put my order in. Even setting up e-mail has been a pain.

I cannot see how there is any likelihood of BT getting their act together and getting fibre into households.

The whole corporation should be split up or a new one established to fibre up the UK.

BT - old fashioned culture, wedded to technology it knows. Ripe for a mercy killing.

By kaneclem on 25 Feb 2010