Virgin Media has officially launched its new Gig1 broadband service, which offers blazing 1.1Gbps speeds and comes with an all-new Hub 4 router. To begin with it’s only available in Southampton, but another UK city will follow shortly.
The Gigabit broadband service comes with a claimed average peak-time download speed of 1,104Mbps – the fastest in the UK, and over 20 times faster than the UK’s average connection going by Ofcom figures.
Gig1 offers an upload speed of 52Mbps – not the fastest in the UK, by a long shot, but still likely plenty speedy enough for most.
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A broadband-only subscription starts at £62 per month, on an 18-month contract (that includes a price freeze for at least two years, the company notes).
Broadband and phone costs £67 a month, and prices go up from there, with various bundles being available:
- Big Bundle (Mixit TV, broadband, phone) - £72 per month
- Bigger Bundle (Maxit TV, broadband, phone) - £89 per month
- Bigger Bundle + movies (Maxit TV + Sky Cinema HD, broadband, phone) - £99 per month
- Bigger Bundle + sports (Maxit TV + Sky Sports HD, broadband, phone) - £105 per month
- Bigger Bundle + sports and movies (Maxit TV + Sky Sports HD and Sky Cinema HD, broadband, phone) - £109 per month
- Ultimate Oomph Bundle (All the TV, broadband, phone and an unlimited SIM) - £119 per month
Broader rollout
As mentioned, to begin with the Gig1 service is live for around 100,000 homes in Southampton, and another major UK city will get to join in the ultrafast fun in the “coming weeks” according to Virgin Media.
The overarching plan is to deliver the Gigabit service to almost 15 million households (the entire Virgin Media network) by the end of 2021.
The new Hub 4 will only be made available to Gig1 subscribers, and will (obviously) be a Gigabit-capable router featuring improved Wi-Fi hardware, with more antennae than the Hub 3, which will also mean it’s more capable of dealing with multiple devices connected simultaneously.
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