Virgin Media will offer fibre optic broadband speeds up to 150MBps in 2012, according to CEO Neil Berkett. Phwoar. That’ll leave BT’s next-gen fibre optics in the dust. Read on to find out what Virgin is planning.
In response to BT’s plans to roll out gut-wrenchingly fast fibre optic broadband to cities between 2010 and 2012, Virgin Media boss Berkett has let slip that Virgin plans to double the 40-60Mbps speeds BT is promising.
“When we look at the market I don’t see us getting the returns right now for 100 or 150Mbps” Berkett told the BBC. “If BT were to meet the time frame they have suggested – of finishing by 2012 – I would see us as having much, much faster upstream speed, running at a minimum of 100Mbps downstream and possibly more.”
Berkett also let slip that Virgin was considering open its network up to other ISPs. “Who knows, by the time BT have rolled out their next generation network we may be in position to explore wholesale,” he said.
Fingers crossed, people. If Virgin pulls this off, by the time the Olympics rolls round, we could have piping fast fibre optic broadband, streaming one HDTV channel while recording several others and serving up blisteringly fast broadband at the same time! Let’s hope Virgin’s talk prompts BT to hit the accelerator on its plans too.
Out TBC | £TBC | Virgin Media
Of course the big question, that nobody wants to answer, is coverage. Are Virgin creating a new digital divide, where a handful of large cities have superfast Fibre, and the other 90% of the country have ADSL upto 8MB…