Are you a Virgin Media customer who joined before 1st December 2019 on one of their 54Mbps M50 packages? If so, the chances are you're eligible for a free upgrade to the M100 package, with average speeds of 108Mbps! This means that over half a million customers can expect to see their average downloads speeds double, and some may even see their speeds increase up to 5 times more! These upgrades are automatically rolling out now, no need for you to do anything to take advantage of it. You'll be emailed when the upgrade is complete, and you can enjoy your new, zippier download speeds.
What does this speed increase mean in practical terms? Well, you won't really see a big difference for simple, every day tasks such as browsing the internet, watching cat videos on YouTube and streaming music; these are all things you can do on a standard broadband connection. Where it will have a big impact is if you stream TV and films in UHD (4K), especially if several members of your household want to watch different things at the same time. 50Mbps is enough to stream a UHD film for one person, but more than that and your connection may start to struggle.
This speed upgrade will also benefit gamers, who frequently download games, large updates and patches, and these can take quite a while to grab. The average game is between 30GB to 50GB in size (and they keep getting bigger, with the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2 hitting around 150GB). A 30GB game takes nearly 90 minutes to download on a 50Mbps connection, whereas it would take just over 40 minutes with a 100Mbps. So the faster your download speed, the faster you'll be playing your games.
If you're not one of the lucky ones to get your speed doubled, you may still be able to get a better speed from your provider without paying any extra! Our newly updated Upgrades Guide tells you what you need to know.
Posted by Edd Dawson on in NewsVirgin Media