Virgin Media boosts XL broadband service to 30Mb

Need for speed

Virgin Media has rolled out a new 30Mb fibre broadband service to replace its existing 20Mb offering from today.

Virgin said the move is a response to the huge take-up of smartphones and growing interest in tablets, coupled with the increased demand on broadband bandwidth from consumers watching TV shows online.

While the new XL service will offer 50 percent more bandwidth compared to the previous service it will cost £18.50 a month, down from the previous £20 when taken with a Virgin Media home phone.

In a dig at long-time rivals BT, Virgin said: "Unlike other fibre optic broadband services based on VDSL technology, such as BT Infinity, Virgin Media customers can expect to receive speeds close to the stated headline 30Mb speed, and aren't subject to the ‘speed lottery' that plagues broadband delivered over telephone wires."

The company said its 30Mb service is expected to deliver ‘faster average speeds than BT Infinity' with unlimited downloads, which it said also costs 'significantly less' than BT's Infinity offerings.

Here is a table from Virgin detailing the costs of its own and its rival's services.

	Virgin Media XL 30Mb	BT Infinity Option 1	BT Infinity Option 2
Price including landline	£18.50+£12.24 = £30.74	£20+£13.60 = £33.60	£25.60+£13.60 = £39.20
Price difference	-	£2.86	£8.46
Minimum contract	12m	18m	18m
Service cost over 12m	£368.88	£403.20	£470.40
Service cost over 18m	£553.32	£604.80	£705.60
Download speeds	Up to 30Mb	Up to 40Mb	Up to 40Mb
Upload speeds	Up to 3Mb²	Up to 2Mb	Up to 10Mb
Data allowance	Unlimited	40GB	Unlimited
Expected download speeds	Over 90% of stated	Dependent on location	Dependent on location

Virgin's current XL broadband customers can upgrade to the new 30Mb service for a one-off fee of £30, which Virgin said covers activation and a shiny new ‘SuperHub' router to replace their old one. The SuperHub combined DOCSIS 3.0 modem and router is capable of Gigabit wired connectivity as well as dual-band ‘N' Wi-Fi.

"As consumers continually demand more and more from their broadband, the unique power of our next-generation network means that we're able to turn up the dial to meet their needs," said Jon James, executive director of broadband at Virgin Media.

"With so many devices connecting to the internet at home these days, our new 30Mb service will give Virgin Media families that extra boost needed to make everything run smoothly, with speeds that don't slow down depending on where you live," he added.

Virgin Media's fibre optic broadband product range will now include 10Mb, 30Mb, 50Mb and 100Mb packages, used by around 4 million homes.

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You state that both Virgin and BT packs are with Unlimited Data use? So does this mean there is no fair use policy? No cap? No throttling?

Only I've heard different so the above could be false advertising.

I can confirm that “unlimited” is indeed, complete rubbish.

They terminated my connection due to my using it too much, even after they asked me to use it between 9pm-9am for heavy downloading, which I complied with. After they wrote saying it would be disconnected in 10 days, I contacted them to find out why and they agreed I had complied with their “out of hours” usage and that I wouldn't be disconnected, followed by saying they would email their “internet security” team to inform them not to disconnect me and that I had complied. Then, 7 days later, they disconnected me.

I am currently looking at legal advice, especially after they used “fair usage” policy in their wording, yet when asked to supply this policy to enable me to comply (once verbally, once in writing), they failed to do so.

Currently I have no internet and it will take 28 days for me to get it back, as I'm waiting for a line to be installed - I am NOT impressed with the way Virgin treats its long-term customers!!!

sadmuppet
They terminated my connection due to my using it too much, even after they asked me to use it between 9pm-9am for heavy downloading, which I complied with. After they wrote saying it would be disconnected in 10 days, I contacted them to find out why and they agreed I had complied with their “out of hours” usage and that I wouldn't be disconnected, followed by saying they would email their “internet security” team to inform them not to disconnect me and that I had complied. Then, 7 days later, they disconnected me.

how much were you downloading? Ive done a good 500GB-1TB a month for a long time without any problems.

They never told me how much either. I do know that I had to download all my Steam games once, which is 300gb of downloads.

I neglected to mention that when I cancelled their services, they called back 2 days later asking why. When it was explained that they cut the ‘net off without warning after they said they wouldn’t, they insinuated that I downloaded movies which I then sold (down the market or similar).

I'm pretty sure the 3000+ DVD/BluRay collection I have, which grows weekly, might disprove that theory - although I'm more angered by the insinuation I'm a pirate making a profit!!!

I don't do Torrents etc - most of my traffic is due to remote access traffic and large data transfers (all legal!!) Anything else is iTunes purchases, Steam purchases etc.

Oh, for anyone interested, they classify 600mb as the size for a movie. One HD TV episode from iTunes when purchased is 3.5 times that size.

Given they want us to buy HD channels, maybe they should consider the internet can be used to access HD content and 600mb is no longer a yard stick for a movie!!

/end rant :)

:edit

I had the 50mb XXL connection for the record - Virgin don't throttle that connection, and I even made the suggestion of it (I could throttle it myself) and they said “It wouldn't make a difference”. They have never said I downloaded too much, just that I used it too much during 9am-9pm, until I was disconnected, when it then turned into “using too much”.

neonplanet40
You state that both Virgin and BT packs are with Unlimited Data use? So does this mean there is no fair use policy? No cap? No throttling?
Only I've heard different so the above could be false advertising.

Be very careful here - there was some discussion on one of the net forum's I was reading, and a lawyer dived in to point out that while a capped service definitely isn't “unlimited data”, one that has throttling is still okay. Remember that they're providing a headline speed, but aren't going to give you any guarantees that you'll actually get that - so if your fancy 10Mb service dives to 500Kb during peak times, then you're still getting unlimited data. It'll just take a lot longer to get it. ;)

VM's throttling does seem to be applied in a patchy manner, some folks get dramatic slashing of their data rates, others (like me! :D) seem to get a more gentle restriction, if any at all.

Ross1
how much were you downloading? Ive done a good 500GB-1TB a month for a long time without any problems.

You beat me to it - I telework using my “L” line and while I don't usually download that much I've seldom seen any evidence of throttling. Heck, last week alone I downloaded six DVD's worth of information (for work purposes!) in addition to the usual Internet TV, game playing, etc.

While the new XL service will offer 50 percent more bandwidth compared to the previous service it will cost £18.50 a month, down from the previous £20 when taken with a Virgin Media home phone

Problem I've got with ‘em is that you would think that they would want to “encourage” people to move up the scale, and hence get a bit more income. Last time I checked it’d cost me 2x the price difference stated on the website to move from L to XL - so where's the “reward” for customer loyalty? Not looking for a discount necessarily, would have just liked to be able to pay no more than the difference they were offering to new customers. And no, I stayed with “L” service as a result! :mad: (Which means I've not paid for an upgrade since I joined Blueyonder back in the late nineties.)

Virgin Media boosts XL broadband service to 30Mb

Need for speed

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