ISP Virgin Media has said it will offer 100Mbps broadband services to its customers by the end of the year.
Virgin Media will offer a 100Mbps broadband product to its customers by the end of the year, it has announced.
The ISP already offers 50Mbps services on its fibre-optic broadband network, which is capable of reaching 12.6 million homes in the UK – roughly 50 per cent of UK households.
Exact launch dates and prices haven’t been confirmed yet, but Virgin said that the 100Mbps broadband service was aimed at “tech-savvy users who want the very best the internet has to offer”, with music albums downloading in as little as five seconds and an HD movie in seven minutes 25 seconds.
“The upcoming launch of our flagship 100Mbps service will give our customers the ultimate broadband experience,” said Virgin Media‘s chief executive officer, Neil Berkett.
“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, by investing in technological innovation and transforming the experience they have when they are online,” he continued.
Virgin, which has 4.1 million broadband customers in the UK, will be the first ISP to offer a 100Mbps product nationwide. BT is currently offering its Infinity product in some areas, though this only has a top speed of 40Mbps.
BT plans to have 10 million UK households connected to its fibre-optic network by the start of the 2012 Olympics.
Some towns in the UK already have fibre-optic networks built by private investors, such as Bournemouth.
Fibrecity, the company behind the network in Bournemouth, this week announced that residents could now get broadband products from three different providers from £9.99 per month.
