Virgin’s new broadband service was hinted at by UK Prime Minister David Cameron during a speech on Oct. 25 at the Confederation of British Industry (CBI).
According to Virgin the 100Mbps service will let customers download a music album in as little as five seconds, as opposed to the 75 seconds the same download would take on a 24Mbps ADSL connection.
Virgin Media mark the launch of ultrafast 100Mb broadband in the UK with a fleet of supercar taxis, which can be hailled and used free of charge.
The fleet includes a Porsche 997 Turbo Gen 1, Ferrari 430 F1 Coupe and Aston Martin DBS.
The high-speed broadband service, first announced this February, is aimed at “tech-savvy” customers, the company said. Virgin’s network will provide “very close to advertised headline speeds” due to its use of cable, rather than the more widespread ADSL technology used by competitors, it added.
A State of the Internet survey published by Akamai in October found that the average connection speed in the UK is just 3.9Mbps, while the average advertised connection speed is 11.5Mbps. The study also found that only 17 percent of UK broadband connections got 5Mbps or more.
The inconsistency between actual and advertised speeds led to new guidelines being set by Ofcom earlier this year calling for greater accuracy when advertising broadband packages.
