Photo: Virgin

In its bid to leave competitors in its dust with respect to broadband speed, Virgin media has just announced that it is upgrading its top tier broadband package to 30Mbps starting 1 February. While that isn’t quite South Korean speed yet, the house that Branson built seems determined to use speed as its major differentiator from competitors.

1 February 2011.02.01

Starting today, 1 February 2011, the 30Mbps Virgin Media broadband service will replace their old 20Mbps offering. This applies to new sign-ups only, with old customers having the option to remain on their current 20Mbps plan, or upgrade to the 30Mbps offering for a once-off fee of £30.

While charging to upgrade to the latest speed seems like taking advantage of those who’ve been loyal to you, Virgin Media justify this expensive in saying that it covers ‘activation and exchange of their old modem and router’ for Virgin Media’s new ‘SuperHub’. Given how expensive top-end routers are, this doesn’t seem at all unreasonable.

Bragging rights here and there

Naturally, the bigwigs at Virgin Media took this broadband service announcement as a chance to score some good PR. Jon James, who is the executive director of the broadband team at Virgin Media, said: ‘With so many devices connecting to the internet at home these days, our new 30Mb service will give Virgin Media families that extra boost needed to make everything run smoothly, with speeds that don’t slow down depending on where you live.’

What will this cost?

Pricing-wise, the new service costs £18.50, insofar as you sign up for the Virgin Media home phone as well, bringing your total to £30.74. That works out to a little over a pound a month for each megabyte of data, which, if you put it that way, sounds pretty reasonable, doesn’t it?

We’re fans of the Virgin Media broadband strategy. Any internet service provider that puts speed as its major focus – without compromising quality – is good for the UK’s telecommunications industry as a whole.

Photo: Virgin

‘Get unlimited broadband with speeds up to….’ Have you ever noticed these commercials from British broadband service providers? They’re no different from ‘this product is clinically proven’ because with the latter, you’re never told what they are clinically proven to do and the former is a misleading indicator, when in fact you should be told what your average speed is.

Ofcom has had enough of this and is grading providers according to average speed. Virgin Media is in support of this cause, and is doing the same of its own volition.

Virgin Media, who benefit from having a high-speed fibre optics network that, in turn, allow their average speeds to mimic their reported ‘up to’ speeds, are calling for providers to be more honest about the actual speeds, too. And, in the interest of not being hypocritical, Virgin media has set up a ‘speed honesty’ site, wherein it will publically publish its average speeds

Controlling the problem

Ofcom is already publishing its own average speed results for the various networks so consumers know what they’re actually getting and the disparity is often times colossal. What the Virgin Media broadband team is doing is controlling the problem and making itself look good in the process.

This way, even though it’s a pure business tactic, they look like they’ve got their consumer at heart.

Fighting words

Jon James, who is the Virgin Media broadband team’s executive director said: ‘People are paying for faster and faster broadband but being ripped off by unscrupulous providers who can’t deliver their promised speeds to even a single customer.’ So what’s the solution James, old chap? ‘A change in advertising is urgently needed to build consumer confidence in super-fast broadband and the industry more generally,’ is Mr. James’ opinion.

Let’s be unequivocal here: British broadband service providers should not be allowed to advertise up to speeds. Not at all. Average speeds are a better indicator of what you’re paying for, making it simpler to grade the quality of each British broadband service provider. The Virgin Media broadband teams realise this. Everybody else needs to now follow suit.

Photo: Ofcom

Anyone who has ever signed a long-term contract with landline or broadband providers knows the feeling of seeing a better deal come by that you cannot take up because you’re locked into a torrid contract with very high early termination fees. That’s about to change, with Ofcom pressuring TalkTalk, BT and Virgin to slash the price of their contract termination fees.

What is a contract termination fee?

A contract termination fee is the amount of money one is still liable to pay for every month left on a contract they’ve recently cancelled. The termination fee is less than the monthly subscription fee, but is often still very high. Ofcom has pressured the major UK broadband providers to reduce this cost, so as to ‘reflect the costs that the providers save by no longer providing the service’ to you.

New pricing

Photo: TalkTalk

In some instances, TalkTalk, BT and Virgin would be reducing the cost of contract termination fees by as much as 85 per cent.

TalkTalk is first out the gate with termination fees revision, which previously ranged from £14.44 to £33.48, to between £3.00 and £8.00. The termination fee is relative to the package that you are on, and this pricing model kicked in on 1 June 2010.

Virgin Media and BT will follow suit from 1 October 2010. With respect to Virgin Media contract cancellations, while charges currently range from £11.99 to £25.99 they will be reduced to £4.00 to £9.00. BT’s contract termination fee sits at £11.54 to £16.53 for every month left on your contract. Come 1 October, that will range between £2.00 and £5.00.

Photo: Virgin

Ofcom has said that they will pressure (and potentially fine) smaller broadband providers to follow suit in slashing these fees.

You can read Ofcom’s full report and pricing revisions here, in case you’re currently trying to escape a contract you’re unhappy with.

Good on ya, Ofcom.

Photo: Virgin

Virgin Media has taken the nest step in movie rental by making the latest movie titles available for hire online. Viewers pay for their movie and have a designated amount of time to watch it before it expires – just like going to the DVD store, but without the trouble. Even those who don’t subscribe to Virgin can get in on the action, and new functionalities are coming soon to make the service even better.

Not just for Virgin customers

Virgin Online have launched their movie rental service online rather than through their set-top box so that those who aren’t Virgin subscribers can also enjoy the service. To watch the movie on a TV set, viewers will simply have to connect their laptop or computer to the TV, then they can sit back and enjoy the show with all the added advantages of home cinema.

How does it work?

Photo: Stock.Xchng

After the viewer has ‘rented’ the movie, they have 30 days in which to watch it. After they’re pressed ‘play’ for the first time, the movie can be streamed for forty-eight hours, after which time it expires, but an unlimited amount of viewings are allowed in that time period.

More on the way

The Virgin movie rental service won’t stop here: as well as continuing to add the latest movie titles to the selection available, its creators also plan to add download capability to the service and to make HD movies available, too. Is this the future of movie rental? If Virgin continues to keep up with the latest movie technology, it just might be. The next step would be TVs that are able to connect straight to the Internet, making the process even simpler. Until then, viewers can keep themselves entertained with the novelty of hours of online movies.

Photo: Virgin

Virgin Media has announced plans to launch their own IPTV service toward the end of 2010, allowing the company to compete with Sky Player and the BBC iPlayer service.

Highest quality

Alex Green, Executive Director of Online, announced this at the IPTV World Forum, where he specifically makes reference to the end of year rollout as well as a promise to have a user experience of the ‘highest quality’.

By quality, Green may be hinting at the possibility of HD content being delivered over IPTV and his saying that they want the right balance between ‘viewing quality and usability’ suggests Virgin may very well be wrestling with this challenge.

Platforms

Photo: BlackBerry

Green stated that the service will deliver on-demand shows to users via the Internet and on mobile devices, indicating applications for mobile OSes like Android, iPhone OS and Blackberry are in the works too. The Virgin Media IPTV competitor BBC iPlayer recently rolled out its own Blackberry solution, to add to the other platforms that service is available for.

The TiVo dovetail

The projected timeline is in line with that of the Virgin Media TiVo set-top boxes launch, implying the two services would be merged in some way. In addition to that, Virgin has been hard at work punting its super fast 200mb/second broadband network, also set for rollout during 2010.

Photo: Android

The convergence of these three products – especially if they’re priced as an affordable bundle – could see Virgin Media working its way into UK homes on television sets, broadband infrastructure and online and mobile programming all at once.

The competition

Virgin may have a very difficult time unseating the incumbents in BBC iPlayer and Sky Player, who have invested significant resources in frequently updating their service. If Virgin does deliver HD programmes while retaining usability, the service may have a lot of traction.