Virgin Media said on Thursday that it plans to offer 100Mb broadband services to customers by the end of 2010.
Virgin claims its customers will be the first to receive broadband speeds "more than 24 times the average speed provided by other ISPs." The 100Mb service will allow users to download a music album in as little as 5 seconds, an hour long TV show in 31 seconds and an HD movie in 7 minutes 25 seconds.
Virgin Media"s chief executive officer, Neil Berkett, said: "There is nothing we can"t do with our fibre optic cable network, and the upcoming launch of our flagship 100Mb service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience. Just as we led the way by launching the UK"s first ever next generation service, we want to keep giving our customers the very best broadband available."
Virgin currently offers a 50Mb service to customers priced at £38 a month. The 50Mb service operates on the company"s new fibre optic cable network. The network is currently trailing a 200Mb service in Kent. Virgin plans to extend its 200Mb pilot to Coventry where it it will offer the trial to hundreds of customers. The 200Mb pilot, which began in May 2009 in Kent, has been testing high bandwidth applications and downloads of HD content.
Virgin Media also released its fourth quarter results for 2009 (PDF). The results show a great demand for high speed broadband services. Virgin"s 20Mb service has seen a 45% increase in demand to 560,300 active customers over the last 12 months. Customers taking out a 50Mb service has increased by 81% to 41,400.
Virgin has not announced pricing, location availability or exact dates but states the roll-out of the 100Mb broadband service will commence by the end of 2010.
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