Virgin Media has responded to BT's latest broadband announcement by asking why consumers would want to wait for the service, rather than plump for its own super-fast broadband.
BT made a point of comparing its new Infinity service, which will be rolled out to certain areas throughout 2010 to the Virgin flagship 50Mbps service in its release, saying its £19.99 package represents 'a saving of £7.47 per month on Virgin Media's XXL highest speed service'.
Among the points made are that this £20 service comes with an 18-month contract, £50 connection fee and, crucially, is not an unlimited service – not really a like-for-like comparison.
Mid 2012
But it is the roll-out that most interests Virgin Media; BT's service is available in January to some locations, but the target of 10 million homes and businesses that will benefit may have to wait until mid 2012.
A Virgin Media spokesperson said: "We're not sure why people in the UK would want to wait for BT's 40Mbps service which hasn't launched yet, when they can already get Virgin Media's great value 50Mbps service.
"Last summer we completed the roll-out of our next generation service to 12.5 million homes and people throughout the country are already enjoying all the fantastic things you can do online with the UK's fastest broadband service.
"We've been saying for years that fibre optic broadband is the future."
10Mbps uploads
BT's second Infinity product offers the 40Mbps download along with an impressive up-to-10Mbps upload speed and an unlimited data tag for £24.99.
The Virgin Media spokesman also reiterated that the company is continuing with its trials of increased upload speeds and that it is looking to roll these out in due course, and that it is still testing a 200Mbps download speed service.
It's no real surprise that Virgin would be pushing its own product on the back of a BT announcement, but when the latter's press release refers directly to the former's products you can't really blame the cable company for responding either.
Your comments (7) Click to add a new comment
celticwelshman
February 3rd 2010
7. In the 23 or so years I have had web access, I have signed up to several IP's including BT, I am now with Virgin and have been for the last 4 years, originally signing up to NTL, firstly on 2 meg, then 10 meg and for the last year or so on 20 meg. I have to say it's the best yet in all it's facets. It's hardly ever below 19 meg download speed, with very little down time, less then a handful of hours in the whole 3 years. The service response is excellent, very friendly, whoever one speaks to knows his/her job, neither does any one in support treat you like a child or an idiot as do many other suppliers. I won't be swapping any time soon, I have never been so satisfied with all aspects of a product. 50 meg is the next target for me.
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healeydave
January 22nd 2010
6. Virgin Media's biggest problem is alienating a huge proportion of the country.
I live in a large cathedral city and have watched the city grow exponentially over the last few decades. It has been reported that the university (which is under-going massive expansion) is the fastest growing in Europe (not just uk).
....and yet, you guessed it, cable or fibre services from companies like Virgin is and never has been on the cards.
I realise putting the infrastructure in is a costly exercise, but how is a company like Virgin Media going to grow its business if its not prepared to make it available to new customers?
The strategy "lets concentrate on trying to get customers where we already have service" doesn't seem too smart when you consider, they're just wasting money on advertising etc trying to compete for customers they may already have had at one point and perhaps lost and won back again in a never ending cycle.
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nessy
January 21st 2010
5. I've got the Virgin Media 20Mb service, plus tv & phone. Speedtest.net always shows 19Mb+, and I can hit around that speed (2.5MB/s) when downloading. The annoying bit is I can only get that speed when where I'm downloading from allows downloads at that speed.
Never had a problem with their customer services. If I have a problem, I just phone them up and, if its not some maintenence work they're doing, they'll fix it quickly. And if the internet stops working, we just have to turn the connection on and off and it starts working again.
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sunnyviji
January 21st 2010
4. have 10mb BB with virgin media, previously with NTL, and been with them for many years, only ever experienced issues a few times, and whenever i have phoned up reporting it they always reduce our payments for the non service, i test my speed every week or more, and is always around the 8.5 - 9.8 mbps, am always gaming online while wife is on youtube, or kids on iplayer, never have any issues, and customer service is very good, have TV Landline and BB with them, i think they are gr8,, and no i dont work for them.
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evildonut
January 21st 2010
3. This is all nice and well, but for those like me who live in a village, it's 8MB ADSL or nothing, despite Virgin Media being available in the nearby town :(
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avi
January 21st 2010
2. I don't know what Virgin is like to deal with but we have BT here and it's a nightmare - they are super useless and even cut our phone off for 6 weeks by plugging something in wrong and taking ages to realise. This is a business!!!
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psyfur
January 21st 2010
1. STM will be the end of virgin media!
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