You, Kent, always get what you want… RSS

…and so do your chums in Folkestone and Dover it seems. Virgin Media are currently trialling their super-fast 50Mbps broadband service in the three aforementioned locations. The webpage on the Virgin Media site dedicated to the trial – located at www.vmpilot.net – screams thus:

“Virgin Media are piloting an exciting, new technology. It’s 50 Mbps broadband and it’s already available to existing cable modem customers in Ashford, Kent. Now it’s available in Folkestone and Dover, too!”

Ashford and Folkestone have both entered what is being referred to as ‘Phase 2′ of the trial, with all Virgin Media customers in the area being able to sign up for speeds of up to 50Mbps for a huge £47 a month. Up until the 1st of this month, signing up for the service was free – it is not yet clear if customers who signed up for the trial before October will still have to pay; we presume that this is the case.

Dover has been running the trial since the start of October 2007, although no pricing details have been announced as yet.

With traffic shaping in place at peak times in place, its doubtful that Virgin will be charging £47 a month for the service, even though 50Mbps is way beyond anything currently on offer from rival ISPs.

Interestingly, some internet rumour millers have suggested that because Virgin are the cable monopoly in this country, it is possible that they may be subjected to BT Openreach style regulations and have to open up their networks to competitors. The big hitters in the Broadband Premiership have all stated that cable is the future of broadband and telephony services. The future is in Virgin’s hands, for the moment at least.

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1 Comment »Posted by Tom on October 31st 2007 in BT Broadband, Broadband, Next Gen Broadband, Virgin Media



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One Response to “You, Kent, always get what you want…”

  1. David Chappie said on 02 Aug 2009 at 12:29 pm #

    So, we in Kent always get what we want, eh? Wrong! I live in Ashford, where this superduper broadband is supposed to exist – yet my broadband speed clunks along at a snail’s pace. No, I don’t have the choice of cable because it doesn’t exist in my area, which is a mere couple of miles from the town centre. I keep hearing that Ashford is a high-speed broadband hub, but I’ve yet to see any real evidence of this. Like the rest of the country, it’s a lottery how good the broadband speed is, purely on where you live. I’m trying to run a freelance business from home, but the service I receive looks set to limit any business development. Check a news report on BBC iPlayer? Forget it – it stop/starts every few seconds. Download a major Microsoft upgrade? Allow 2-3 hours outside work hours to do it. Watch a YouTube video? Yeah, if you’re prepared for the download to be twice as long as the video. It really is that pathetic!


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