Virgin Media is set to launch ultrafast 152Mb broadband for its 12.5 million UK customers in February 2014, which would be twice as fast as any other available service, making it the country’s fastest widely available broadband.
The company will however increase its price by 6.7% from February. Virgin Media claims new costs are required to maintain competition with rivals and also boost speeds for its existing customers via fibre-based network.
Virgin Media chief executive officer Tom Mockridge said as people connect more things simultaneously to the internet more often, they need powerful broadband with the bandwidth to deliver a great experience for everyone in the home.
"That connection is what we deliver with our unrivalled network. We are boosting speeds again and ensuring our customers can get even more value from their Virgin Media subscription," Mockridge said.
"Our top speed will be twice as fast as BT and all the others reliant on their old copper telephony infrastructure as we extend our lead as Britain’s ultrafast broadband provider."
According to the internet service provider, the new 152Mb top speed would allow downloading an HD movie within four minutes as well as an entire music album in four seconds.
There has been a 55% spike in volume of internet traffic by Virgin Media customers in 2012 and around 1000% since the company was commissioned in 2007. The amount of data downloaded by users each month rose by a third in within twelve months.
