Warrington first to see 50meg broadband
Friday 14 November 2008 14:53:32 by Andrew Ferguson
While Warrington looks set to be the first bit of the Virgin Media network to get access to the DOCSIS3 based product running at 50Mbps, this will be for only 200 customers who are being invited onto the package.
The Virgin Media XXL product must rate as one of the most widely known about new broadband product launches - if it was a bit of software some would be calling it vapour-ware. No price information yet, but it seems likely that the questionnaires may be part of a strategy to gauge what price people think is fair.
One aspect of Virgin Media products is the wide variety of deals available, which probably explains why The Register lists the existing 20Mbps product as costing £20 per month plus £11 line rental, when the Virgin Media website is currently listing £29 a month for the first 12 months, then rising to £36 and a telephone line if you want one will cost £11 a month extra. There is a deal where you can sign-up for a dual-play bundle with XL at £10 a month for six months, rising to £20 a month for the rest of the contract, you are required to take a Virgin telephone line at £11 a month to get this price. Details of the usage restrictions that apply over the various times of the day are detailed here.
Update 3:35pm The Register has altered the pricing for XL that it listed, and changed the limit wording to reflect its peak time period. As of 6pm, we have altered the XL pricing we list, it seems there is a variety of offers, and which price you see will depend on how you navigate around the Virgin Media website
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staff member)
8 months ago
Be interested to know where we are defending Virgin Media.
This site far from supports Virgin its impartial and brings us their so called good as well as not so good news
"...The Register lists the existing 20Mbps product as costing £20 per month plus £11 line rental, when the Virgin Media website is currently listing £29 a month for the first 12 months, then rising to £36"
£20 is the correct price fro 20Mb when taking a phone line & broadband bundle.
http://allyours.virginmedia.com/html/internet/bb_deal_size_xl.html
"add a telephone line if you want one will cost £4.50 a month."
Phone line is £11. The £4.50 deal is for 2Mb when you take a phone line.
staff member)
8 months ago
Rejigged pricing again, there are multiple offers and multiple pages with the prices on, so all to easy to miss the current deal.
I pay £26 a month for XL 20 Meg broadband only without a phone for 12 months (that I signed a deal online offer last June 2008) After 12 months the price will return to £36 a month.
Dudley area also have 200 customers trialling it there, looks like there'll be 200 on Knowsley, and 200 on Langley/Bromley to start off with before the main roll out
Are Virgin going to continue their usage limit on their so called unlimited broadband for the XXL package? As a XL Virgin Broadband user I was rather annoyed when my 20Mbs came back 0.2Mbs on the speed test recently and called Virgin who said my speed had been limited as my connection had downloaded 3GB of data in 12 hours. As I share my connection with my 3 flatmates an Xbox and a Wii this is quite easy to do. I believe their usage limit is 3GB in the evening or 6GB during the day.
staff member)
8 months ago
On XXL it is a case of we really don't know, and even if at launch it does not have one, there is no knowing what might happen in the future.
Virgin Media will do everything they can to hide the true cost e.g. heir special offer prices often list the required phone line rental separately. For example, I received a letter today offering me 2 months free TV/phone/broadband which the very small print tells me is subject to a £75 install fee, i.e. not free. Thereafter it's "£33 a month with a Virgin phone line for £11 a month" - why can't they just say £44?!!? See http://virginmedia.com/xmas
They're all Chavs using Virgin in Warrington!
Sorry - Chavs do not exist North of Watford.
WOW XL Virgin Can't even supply to their existing Customers Due to Over Subscription!! On My UBR, which is Barnet I am Lucky if I get above 1 Mb during the day. and Virgin say this will not be resolved until December 23rd 2008 I hope!!! so much for the Very Impressive (Now Inadequate) Package.
hmmm, Warrington is not the first to get 50mbs broadband from VM - this has been available in Ashford Kent since early 2008 I believe.
I had tv/phone/broadband installed and they did not charge me an installation fee. I even had it installed on a saturday (again the T&Cs said they might charge extra). When ringing up ask them if there's an installation fee, if they said yes say that you don't want to go ahead and they waive it! Admittedly i'm on the XL package so am spending a lot each month.
I was lucky to be included in the Dudley 200, for the new service and can say apart from initial connection problems the service seems OK. Speed test on their website reports on avg 41.88 Mbs during daylight hours. I await the price announcement with interest before I commit to it after the test is over.
As fibrecity have started installing their 100Mbps service in Bournemouth it will be interestingto see what pricing structure Virgin will apply to Bournemouth. We haven't yet had any idea of the pricing for this up to 100Mbps service from any of the potential suppliers so I am watching this carefully as my 20Mbps Virgin service is very slow and I would change in an instant if it is competitive.
ha ha you suckers wait till your cabling cracks up like around here in somerset/wilts
when it rains we lose the lot lol buck she schiester company
This is clearly the magic product you keep mentioning that may have no caps or throttling. Now we know how Virgin will achieve that: by limiting it to 200 customers!
I haven't carried out a scientific survey, but I have to say, recently my impression of this site is that it's become an advertising channel for Virgin Media, promoting their products and defending controversial policies.