Broadband Guide

50Mb broadband in the UK

Updated: Tuesday 04 January, 2011

By Seamour Rathore - seamour@consumerchoices.co.uk

Want to download a music album in 11 seconds, or an hour-long TV show in just over a minute? Then you'lll need Virgin Media's (www.VirginMedia.com) 50Mb broadband. (Updated 06/01/11)

50Mb broadband packages

Virgin Media's next-generation, superfast broadband offers speeds of up to 50Mb for domestic broadband users. This is particularly relevant for “power” users such as internet gamers and heavy downloaders, but could also benefit a household with multiple broadband users.

For example, with a 50Mb service, several people could be using the same wireless connection throughout the house with no noticeable reduction in the quality of the connection for any of the users. And as we're increasingly watching TV online, as well as downloading films and music from the internet, the broadband mass market will demand better speeds. The 50Mb package comes with "unlimited" downloads, subject to Virgin Media's acceptable usage policy. However, the package currently has no traffic management policy.

In this guide we’ll look at the benefits of Virgin Media's 50Mb broadband and discover whether it could be a valuable addition to your household.

What is 50Mb broadband?

Entertainment and communications company Virgin Media, launched the UK’s fastest consumer broadband service in December 2008. At speeds of up to 50Mb, it offers customers an experience nearly nine times the headline average, which is 5.9Mb according to regulator Ofcom.

The 50Mb broadband service was available to 5.2 million UK homes at launch and that number has increased to 12 million UK households now, according to Virgin Media.

The ISP’s superfast broadband service works through its state-of-the-art fibre optic cable network which, using light, can carry masses of data. Fibre optic cables are made of glass and are as thin as human hair.

In order to launch the 50Mb service, Virgin Media has almost doubled the original size of its UK cable network, creating the potential to handle speeds of up to 200Mb in the future. The upgrade has also resulted in improvements to the service which the company offers to all its subscribers. Existing Virgin Media customers are currently being upgraded for free from 2Mb and 4Mb packages to 10Mb, for example.

Why do we need 50Mb broadband?

One of the main reasons 50Mb broadband has been introduced is to cater for rapidly increasing demand for online entertainment. A YouGov survey of over 1,000 people in October 2008 found that more than one-third of people were already thinking about upgrading their broadband to a faster service to meet their needs for new types of internet content. The survey also found that more than one-third of people wanted to be able to download or stream TV more quickly than they were currently able to.

Who could benefit from 50Mb broadband?

Viewers and players of on-line entertainment

Watching TV online, whether live streaming, or downloading TV programmes from services such as the BBC iPlayer is increasingly popular. It is estimated that every day around 1.3 million programmes are watched online through the iPlayer. Online gamers also need superfast speeds and a high bandwidth capacity to get the most out their pastime. As Virgin Media’s 50Mb broadband promises an upload speed of 1.5Mb, it means that those with the service will even be able to host large games.

Multiple household users

With superfast broadband, various members of the family will be able to access one internet connection without any noticeable fall-off in the quality or speed of the service. For example, one member of the family can be using chatting to friends on Facebook, another gaming, and yet another downloading hi-definition movies all on the one connection.

Homeworkers

50Mb broadband also offers the possibility of a true “home office” as it promises business-standard speeds to residential broadband users. This means that workers will have the technology available to use a virtual private network (VPN), download large files and even speak to clients via online video-conferencing.

So, just what can I do with 50Mb broadband?

It’s easy to see why Virgin Media’s 50Mb broadband is called “next generation” when you consider what you could do with it, running at full speed:

• Download every Penguin Classic novel (1,300 titles) in 90 seconds
• Download every James Bond film (22 titles) in 1 hour and 10 minutes
• Download an episode of Dr Who in 1 minute
• Download the entire Beatles back catalogue in 6 minutes and 15 seconds

As more and more people want to use the internet for home entertainment, speed is becoming an important issue.

Here’s how the long it takes to download various media on different connections:

Source: Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com)

Can everyone get 50Mb broadband?

Virgin Media has now completed its 50Mb roll-out and it is available to 12 million UK households.

50Mb broadband is currently available for £25 a month when you take a Virgin Media phone line for an additional £13.90 a month.

As a standalone product, 50Mb broadband is available for £35 a month for the first three months.

There are also set-up and installation charges to take into account.

All 50Mb customers will get a state-of-the-art “N” router too, which should enable greater coverage at home and cut down on black spots. The router will also be able to cope if Virgin Media increases its speeds to 100Mb.

The 50Mb package also comes with a special USB adaptor and modem for use with the router.

Use Virgin Media’s 50Mb postcode checker to see if it’s available in your area yet.

Will superfast broadband get even faster?

Although 50Mb is a breakthrough for UK broadband users, Japanese consumers have been able to get speeds of up to 160Mb domestically for some time.

However, now Virgin Media has thrown down the gauntlet, its competitors have been stirred to announce broadband speed improvements of their own. Be Broadband (www.BeThere.co.uk) trialled speeds of 45Mb broadband in December 2008, suggesting that it is seeking to offer an ADSL, copper wire alternative to Virgin Media’s superfast cable service.

Then BT Broadband (www.BT.com) upped the ante in late March 2009, saying it would upgrade 29 of its exchanges to 40Mb and possibly 60Mb by 2012. BT also pointed out that in some new-build housing areas; it has already installed 100Mb BT broadband.

The next day, Virgin Media hit back, saying that it would offer speeds of up to 150Mb broadband before BT even completes its fibre network.

At the start of 2010, BT Broadband (www.BT.com) launched its own superfast broadband in the form of its fibre optic BT Infinity (www.BT.com/Infinity) packages.

A BT Infinity up to 40Mb broadband package costs £25.60 a month for “unlimited downloads”, subject to a fair usage policy, with massive 10Mb upload speeds.

It was only available to around 500,000 customers at launch, with plans to increase coverage to a further 2.5 million homes by summer 2010 and four million customers by the end of the year.

So competition among broadband suppliers is clearly driving the market. However, consumers hit by the recession are proving less susceptible to the charms of superfast broadband than the providers were hoping.

In an April 2009 survey, BroadbandChoices.co.uk found that 66 per cent of consumers were unwilling to pay extra for the benefits of superfast broadband. service. The figure had more than doubled since the last survey in 2007 which found that only 30 per cent of people were unwilling to pay extra for a superfast connection.

Microsoft has predicted that if current trends continue, Europeans will spend more time on the web than watching TV by June 2010. On that basis it seems likely that demand for speedier broadband services can only rise, but any services will need to be at the right price for consumers.

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