Virgin Media today launched its Vivid 200Mbps broadband service with an offer to upgrade existing customers free. The Vivid brand will cover all its ‘ultrafast’ broadband services, including its 100Mbps offering.

The telco is to contact its 4.6 million broadband customers to explain how they can opt-in to an upgrade starting from 1 October 2015. It said it will reward existing broadband customers by offering them the chance to upgrade from their existing nominal speeds. Customers currently paying for 50Mbps, 100Mbps and 152Mbps packages will be able to upgrade to, respectively, speeds of 70Mbps, 150Mbps and 200Mbps.

The service provider claims this is the third time the company has boosted customer broadband speeds in five years, quadrupling the potential top speed available from 50Mbps in 2010 to 200Mbps in 2015. According to Virgin its customers could potentially download a two hour HD movie in three minutes two seconds and a music album in three seconds.

Virgin Media claims that upgrading from even the lowest available package puts them on a broadband speed that matches the top end offered by the BT network. It claims its new data over cable service interface specification (DOCSIS 3) will be the key to installing the superior speeds in record time, with a target of 90 cent of customers being able to upgrade by the end of 2015.

The upgrade comes as data usage on the Virgin Media network grows at 60 per cent a year, in response to which it has started a £3 billion programme to connect four million more homes and businesses to ultrafast broadband speeds, it said.

“If you want to be certain that you are signing up to true ultrafast broadband speeds Vivid Virgin Media is the new standard,” said Gregor McNeil, Virgin Media’s MD of Consumer.

However, three-figure speeds are some way off becoming a household essential, according to Ewan Taylor-Gibson, broadband expert at telco comparison firm uSwitch.com.

“Providers are already looking to the future, with Sky and TalkTalk running a 940Mbps speed trial in York, while BT is experimenting with G.fast speeds of up to 1Gbps. Yet the majority of consumers are yet to catch on to the benefits of faster broadband, with only one in three using existing superfast services,” said Taylor-Gibson.

Visit the world’s leading conference and exhibition focused on fixed mobile convergence – Broadband World Forum 2015 – in London on 20-22 October.