Virgin Media to double the speed of customer broadband
Virgin Media will double the speed of its broadband service for over four million of its customers, the company has said.
The upgrade, which begins in February, will also see the service’s top speed increase from 100Mbps to 120Mbps.
The full roll-out is expected to be complete by mid-2013 at a cost to the company of £110m.
The Prime Minister, David Cameron, said the investment would be a “great boost” to the UK.
“I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media,” Mr Cameron said in a statement.
“It will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet.”
“Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy.”
The government has set targets to improve the UK’s broadband speeds considerably in the next three years.
Culture secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Faster broadband speeds are great for customers and great for business, which is why our policy is to deliver superfast broadband to 90% of the country by 2015.
“Virgin Media’s plans to double broadband speeds are really exciting and we applaud their ambition.”
Last year BT announced it was investing £2.5bn to make fibre broadband available to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2015.
It promised significant improvements to most homes, while even faster broadband – around 300Mbps – will become available in certain “superfast” areas.
