News
Virgin prepares to roll out 50Mbps broadband
Ben Furfie May 14 2008, 11:51pm
Comments (10)
CORRECTION: Virgin confirms roll-out of 50Mbps broadband service later this year
Virgin Media has confirmed to PC Retail that it will be rolling out a 50Mbps service later this year, contrary to earlier reports that it would be launching a commercial Gigabit service.
Currently, the fastest speed available from competitors on BT-lines is 24Mbps. The new speeds will effectively double what its competitors offer. It has since confirmed that it is currently trialling the its 50Mbps service.
The trial used Juniper routes and Nortel's Adaptive Optical Engine, as well as Virgin's fibre-optic network to carry 40Gbps traffic between two hubs; one in Manchester, the other in London. It builds upon the ISP's current 10Gbps infrastructure.
"Our aim for this trial was to ensure that we continue to meet the growing capacity needs of the high-speed services we deliver," explained Virgin Media's director of technical architecture Daniel Hennessy.
"The live trial demonstrated how Juniper Networks high-performance routers can be used by service providers to leverage existing investments and cost-effectively and efficiently scale their networks to meet the demands of next-generation services," added Juniper Networks' senior vice president and head of High End Systems Business Unit Opher Kahane.
According to Virgin, the new services will be offered in 2Mbps, 10Mbps, 20Mbps and 50Mbps packages, though no prices nor exact date for the service's launch have been announced yet.
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Comments
“Gbps”
Posted by: Marc Bradshaw - May 15, 11:48am
50Gbps would be amazing! I think you mean Mbps...
“Editorial Mistake”
Posted by: Mike W - May 15, 11:52am
You have obviously mis read the Broadband speed of Gbps against Mbps, Virgin are rolling out 50Mbps not 50Gbps.
“50 Gbps?”
Posted by: The Prof - May 15, 12:30pm
50 Gbps? Why don't we raise the national speed limit to 7,000 MPH while we're at it?
Methinks a small typo here! I'd be happy with 50Mbps
“Re: 50 Gbps?”
Posted by: paul - May 15, 12:52pm
it says 2, 10, 20 & 50Gbps.
surely it must be Gbps because we already have 2 & supposedly 10Mbps from virgin.
so they wouldnt be offering new 2 & 10Mbps would they.
but then again Korea's broadband is only going to reach 100Mbps bu 2010 and they seem to lead the way in this technology.
very confusing
“Re: 50 Gbps?”
Posted by: PsiG - May 15, 12:54pm
Your competitive information is also incorrect. Be (bethere.co.uk) have been offering 24Mbps for a long time now on BT lines (thank you Be!) and there are plenty of 16Mbps providers out there.
I would like to raise a huge problem faced by rural customers these days - BT have been extremely poor at unpgrading exchanges in remote areas which has lead to more expensive AND lower quality internet connections for remote customers.
It's about time some consumer groups and ISPs themselves started putting pressure on BT to improve their national infrastructure. I hope the new service from Virgin will also help to drive this.
“Re: 50 Gbps?”
Posted by: PC Retail – Ben Furfie - May 15, 1:33pm
Thank you PsiG for that information, the story has been amended.
With regards to the difference between Mbps and Gbps, Gbps is correct according to the MacWorld website where we sourced the story.
We are still awaiting comment from Virgin Media about the story to confirm.
We'd like to thank you for reading the site, and please don't hesitate to contact me or any other member of the editorial team in the future.
Ben Furfie – Staff Writer
“Re: 50 Gbps?”
Posted by: Jim - May 15, 2:26pm
It looks to me as though they were trialling high-speed links for the infrastructure between hubs and are not talking about a consumer service. Virgin have had 2 & 10 Mbps services for a while and 20Mbps has been available for a few months now and certain areas are getting 50Mbps. To increase the speeds generally the infrastructure needs to support far higher speeds and I can see the rationale behind having a range of options to carry the information from the backbones to distribution points..
“Re: 50 Gbps?”
Posted by: Shaun Rigby - May 15, 2:45pm
Hmmm 50Gbps? Load up Google then BAM! your traffic managed!
“Re: 50 Gbps?”
Posted by: PC Retail – Ben Furfie - May 16, 10:04am
Hi all,
As you may have noticed, we have now amended the story following confirmation from Virgin that the MacWorld story was factually wrong.
We are always more than happy to correct stories when wrong and would like to thank you for bringing this error to our attention.
“Re: Re: 50 Gbps?”
Posted by: pw - Jun 18, 12:18pm
They were quoting two things
40Gb/S for the main backbone
and 50Mb/S direct to home