Virgin Media tops 2 Gbps in ‘real world’ trials

Lucky VM broadband punters in Southampton and Manchester could be set for blistering download speeds if the latest trials are anything to go by.

VM is describing them as ‘proof-of-concept trials’ in which engineers hooked up existing domestic fibre connections to its new Hub 4 router, which comes as standard with its Gig1 broadband service. Using the magic of DOCSIS 3.1 they managed to extract no less than 2.2 Gbps of lovely data out of the connection, implying they could do it in real life if they wanted.

“We invest more than £1 billion into our network every year to deliver leading connectivity today, but our talented teams never stop pushing forward to ensure we’re ready to power our customers’ connectivity needs for whatever comes next,” said Jeanie York, VM’s CTIO.

“Our services are being relied on and used more than ever before, and these innovative trials in Manchester and Southampton demonstrate how Virgin Media’s existing network is fit for the future with hyperfast, multi-gigabit broadband speeds delivered straight to customer homes.”

How about now, Jeanie? What are you waiting for? These speeds apparently don’t require additional infrastructure or civil engineering works so let’s do this. As ever the question of how much use there is for such speeds is relevant, but we always seem expand to absorb available infrastructure. Still, it would probably take an extended household simultaneously streaming 8K video to make a dent in that bandwidth.