Virgin Media gives broadband boost to almost 1MN in UK

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Virgin Media gives broadband boost to almost 1MN in UK DetailsEditor | 07 January 2020 With broadband access and service in the UK still hot issues following the recent General Election, Virgin Media has decided to start 2020 with what it says is one of the UK’s biggest ever gifted broadband upgrade programmes.Effective immediately, more than a million Virgin Media customers are set to enjoy a free boost to the provider’s M100 broadband offer, meaning average broadband speeds of 108Mbps, said by the cable operator to be around twice as fast as the UK average. That would mean more than half a million existing Virgin Media customers seeing their broadband speeds double with some seeing their speeds increase fivefold. Eligible customers will see services boosted automatically and free of charge.Once the upgrade to M100 has completed, Virgin Media’s average speed across its entire broadband base will rise to more than 150Mbps. The new development is the latest in a series of network enhancements by Virgin which in 2019 announced that it was bringing gigabit speed broadband to residents in and around Southampton, Manchester and Reading. The Gig1 service is rated as offering connectivity up to 20 times faster than UK average broadband speed and the company plans to bring gigabit connectivity to around 15 million UK homes by the end of 2021. In February 2019, Virgin Media began trialling what it says is the UK’s fastest home broadband with a full fibre connection offering speeds of more than 8 Gbps to homes in Cambridgeshire. The trial made use of EPON (Ethernet Passive Optical Network) technology - a global point-to-point network standard.Commenting on the latest upgrade, Annie Brooks, executive director of connectivity at Virgin Media, said: “We’re starting 2020 with a broadband bang by rewarding our loyal customers with this free speed upgrade so even more people can experience our ultrafast, future-proof connectivity. We want to banish buffering and let our customers live without limits so they can do everything they want to online, at the same time, without delay. Whether they’re streaming Ultra HD movies on demand while downloading the latest game, or simply browsing the web, we’ve got our customers covered.”