Cable and full fibre ISP
Virgin Media UK could be about to make a number of significant service changes for July 2020, such as making their existing 516Mbps (36Mbps upload) broadband bundle available to non-TV (standalone) customers and then boosting their TV Oomph plan to a top download of 600Mbps!
At present nearly all of
Virgin Media’s customers – both via the operator’s
Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) and
Fibre-to-the-Premises (
FTTP) based networks – are still covered by their existing EuroDOCSIS 3.0 platform (i.e. the communication standard for cable networks) and this currently offers a maximum tier of 516Mbps (i.e. max profile speed of 575Mbps download and 38.5Mbps upload) via their old HUB 3.0 router.
On top of that the operator is also rapidly deploying a new
DOCSIS 3.1 upgrade which, using the new
HUB 4.0 router, will make 1Gbps (50Mbps upload) speeds available across their entire network by the end of 2021 (
latest roll-out update). But in the meantime the best that most subscribers can get is still their 516Mbps plan that has so far only been available alongside their TV bundles (
Oomph).
However feedback from existing customers and other sources have enabled ISPreview.co.uk to uncover two imminent changes. Firstly, the 516Mbps plan will no longer be “
exclusive” to their TV bundles and can soon be purchased as a normal broadband package. Secondly, the 516Mbps
Oomph TV bundle will at the same time be upgraded for free to offer
600Mbps (probably with the same upload as before) – you won’t be able to get this speed without TV (most likely to keep Oomph subscribers happy, given what they pay).
NOTE: The c.600Mbps plan will work over VM’s existing EuroDOCSIS 3.0 network and thus HUB 3.0 router, although the HUB 4.0 is starting to see wider distribution (
here).
The changes are expected to be announced at some point around the end of this month or perhaps during July. At the same time Virgin Media will probably make a few other changes to their packages, such as possibly switching from 12 to 18 month contract terms (minimum terms do change from time-to-time, at all ISPs) and removing the install cost of a v6 / TiVo TV service etc. But we don’t know for certain if those will occur at the same time.
We should point out that, based on past experience, speed boosts for existing customers usually take a few months to complete (i.e. we wouldn’t be surprised if this took until around the end of 2020 to finish). We did ask Virgin Media to comment on all this but no reply had been received by the end of play yesterday.