Virgin Media increases max download speed to 200Mbps, for free (ish)

New and existing customers get free speed boosts across all three tiers from October 1.

Sebastian Anthony – Sep 29, 2015 12:54 pm | 26

Virgin Media, the UK’s only national cable Internet provider, has announced a free speed boost for new and existing customers. Starting from October 1, Virgin’s top-tier download speed will increase from 152Mbps to 200Mbps. Virgin is also announcing a new brand/marque for connections that are rated at 100Mbps or higher, called Vivid. There doesn’t seem to be any difference between normal and Vivid connections, beyond download speeds; it’s just some snazzy new name that someone in the marketing department probably came up with.

Beyond the top-end speed increase, Virgin is actually rejigging its broadband packages across the board. Curiously, if you’re an existing Virgin customer, you will get slightly faster speeds than new customers. First, here’s the deal for existing Virgin customers: on October 1, you will be able to opt into a new broadband package with higher download speeds. Note that you must opt in; it will not happen by default. Virgin should contact you and tell you how to opt in. If you’re currently on Virgin’s 50Mbps package, it’ll go up to 70Mbps; if you’re on 100Mbps, it will go up to 150Mbps; and if you’re on 152Mbps, the max will become 200Mbps.

From October 1, new customers will have access to three broadband packages: 50Mbps, Vivid 100, and Vivid 200. It isn’t clear why existing customers get 70Mbps and 150Mbps, rather than 50 and 100; presumably it’s just Virgin being nice. (The press release points out rather cockily that the low-end 70Mbps package is now almost as fast as BT’s top-end 76Mbps FTTC.) In the past, Virgin has conducted successful small-scale tests of 300Mbps and higher, so we’d expect further speed hikes in the future as and when they’re needed.

In all cases, the pricing and max upload speed of the three broadband tiers remain the same as before. Updated: It seems broadband-only prices will increase, but from November 1, a month after the “free” speed bump. Virgin says this is just a normal, annual price hike. One commenter says the price is increasing by £1.75 per month—which, to my eyes, seems to be a fair bit more than inflation…

Virgin is currently going through a big (£3 billion) expansion in the UK, with the goal of cabling up another 4 million homes by 2020—bringing the total to 17 million, or thereabouts. For reliable download speeds, Ofcom recently reported that Virgin’s DOCSIS-based network is far superior to ADSL- and VDSL-based offerings from BT and its resellers. Virgin also came out on top when we looked for the UK’s safest ISP. BT, meanwhile, is pushing ahead with G.fast, which should allow for download speeds beyond 300Mbps.