Virgin Media knocks your socks off and steals your shirt with 500mbps broadband

Chris Merriman
@ChrisTheDJ
29 April 2019

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VIRGIN MEDIA has given customers another speed-boost with the launch of a 500Mbps tier.

The fastest FTTC service in the country has slowly grown in the past ten years, where 50Mbps was the premium.

Despite being outed by Ofcomrecently as bottom of the list for customer service complaints, Virgin has always been ahead of the curve on speeds thanks to its existing cable infrastructure, thus avoiding the increasingly doddery Openreach copper wires.

500Mbps tier, called VIVID 500 comfortably tops Virgin's previous top speed, an already way-cool 350Mbps but it does come with caveats that will put a strain on the pocket.

It comes as part of a quad-play offer from Virgin, the V.VIP bundle, which offers two Virgin v6 boxes, the full channel package including Sky and BT Sports and Sky Movies (basically everything but the porn), home phone, a Virgin Mobile SIM with unlimited caps on calls, texts and broadband in addition to the super pimped home broadband service powered by a router with Virgin's Intelligent WiFi. That will cost £139 (£99 for the first year) - more than double the 350Mbps package.

At present, standalone broadband will set you back £52 per month, but there's no VIVID 500 offering yet - you're capped at a poxy 350Mbps - damn Virgin Media, why do you hate us so? There's also set-up fees, which at these prices sounds a bit rich.

500Mbps could see users able to download a 4K movie in about six minutes - not 5G speeds, but not far off and far, far more than you need for an average browsing experience.

In reality, Virgin is estimating an average of 516mbps, to ensure its always over 500, but it could actually reach 575mbps if there's absolutely nothing slowing it down. Living in the cable head-end might be helpful for that. μ