19 March 2007
The continuing fight for customers between Virgin Media and BSkyB transferred from the world of digital TV to broadband this week, with the news that Virgin Media will offer a 20Mb speed broadband service.
The 100% speed increase from its current 10Mb broadband would result in MP3 tracks being downloaded in just two seconds, as well as optimising the quality of on-demand internet television programmes.
Virgin Media customers signed up to the broadband service will see their monthly bills increase from £35 per month to £37 when the new bandwidth is introduced in May this year.
Its biggest rival BSkyB has hit back this week though, claiming that the rise in broadband speed is just an attempt to distract its customers from the fact that it is increasing its costs.
Reported on PCAdvisor.com, the telecommunications giant said: "Virgin Media is pushing up broadband prices at a time when dramatic savings are available from other providers.
"Sky customers can enjoy download speeds of up to 16Mb per second for just £10 per month - less than a third of the price of Virgin Media's fastest service."
A spokesperson for Richard Branson's company responded by saying that it had no plans to raise the costs of any other plans and that the customers who chose the XL broadband option knew that are getting the full speed, rather than having a contended service, as is the case with ADSL broadband, where network traffic and other factors can make the true connection speed far lower.
© 2008 Adfero Ltd
Content for the uSwitch.com market news service is provided by a third party, Adfero Ltd. Whilst uSwitch.com makes reasonable efforts to check the reliability of this content, uSwitch.com does not guarantee the accuracy thereof or endorse the views or opinions given by Adfero Ltd, unless expressly stated otherwise.