BT is matching Virgin Media's consumer and home worker fibre broadband speed of 100mbps, but also adding a higher data sending speed.
BT has expanded its BT Infinity broadband family to include a download speed of up to 100mbps (megabits per second). This matches Virgin Media's fastest commercial download speed, and in addition BT says it's offering an upload speed that is up to 50 percent faster at 15mbps, compared to Virgin's 10mbps.
Most BT domestic broadband customers connected with traditional copper wire receive a maximum download speed of 10mbps dependent on the distance from the phone exchange and the condition of network infrastructure used, with a typical upload speed of between 1 and 2mbps or much lower in some cases.
The BT fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) offering from BT is ideal for remote workers dealing with large files that have to be received and sent, and for consumer TV and video on demand use - particularly in the HD format - and online gamers.
The 100mbps BT Infinity Option 3 comes with unlimited evening and weekend calls for £35 a month. This is the same monthly price charged by Virgin Media. For both deals at this price the user has to also rent a phone line.
John Petter, managing director of BT's consumer division, said: "We are seeing very encouraging takeup of our fibre-based broadband and we now have more than 300,000 customers. BT Infinity Option 3 matches the top speed currently available in the UK and beats the upload speed offered by Virgin Media's best offering."
Both companies are in the middle of rolling out their fastest fibre broadband offerings across the UK, with BT saying the 100mbps package will initially be available to customers in areas including Highams Park and Leytonstone in London, Ilford in Essex, Ashford in Middlesex, Chester, York, St. Austell and Exeter.
Comments
Simon7063 said: Competition can only be a good thing for prices but arent Virgin 200 Meg capable already but waiting for the market to be ready for it Also mentions of 20Mbps upstreamThough for many 50Meg and 5Meg upstream id more than enough so why pay for more unless you really need it or want to boast the fastest Certainly VM 50Meg is enough for me at present fell out with BT when they told me I could have broadband within 5-7 years and took the original TW 512Kbps that was amazing back then how times have changed D
imaginarynumber said: I have a number of clients living in central london that have to put up with about 18meg that is constantly falling over who would love to have the stability of Virgin but their street has never been green boxedI think it is a legacy thing from the days pre NTL and Blueyonder
imaginarynumber said: I get the impression that virgin dont mind home workers signing upto a domestic service They even allow homeowners to run servers i think with a 10 simultaneous users capDoes BTs ToCs allow homeworking or is the only difference other than cost the SLA
Ken said: I live in not so deep Cornwall with no news of the Fibre Optic rollout in the near future I think slow speeds are for us here to stay
Maccyroo said: Virgins fibre optic network now covers most large towns in England have you checked the availability in your area I struggled for years with an up to 8meg adsl package which gave me under 3meg most of the time I live in a large market town in KENT ten minutes walk from the town centre and 2 miles from thetelephone exchangeand am now a happy 10meg Virgin customer As I type this it is peak evening time yet running speedtestnet from another browser tab I can see I am still getting 85Mbps even at this time My previous adsl with TalkTalk gave me around 1Mbps at this time of day if i was lucky
GALLEYSLAVE said: Wheres mine BT get your finger out
Steve said: and while the race to the fastest speed continues the rest of us who cant even be supplied with a 1meg service get forgotten And no I dont live in the sticks I live in a large suburban town