Virgin Media promises 152Mbps but at a price

Virgin Media has announced plans to offer broadband connections with a top speed of 152Mbps, but customers will have to pay the price.

While home phone plans will remain the same, the ISP confirmed cable customers could expect a 6.7% increase in their bills on average from February 2014, when Virgin debuts the top speeds debut on its network.

Virgin Media is writing to customers individually to explain the price hike to them but a statement claimed it was investing the money into new services, such as BT Sport and Netflix, as well as increasing speeds on its network which it will offer to 12.5 million premises.

Virgin has also promised to increase the current customer download speeds by at least 20Mbps – although it added the caveat of "depending on their current service".

“We are boosting speeds again and ensuring our customers can get even more value from their Virgin Media subscription,” said Tom Mockridge, CEO of Virgin Media. 

“Our top speed will be twice as fast as BT and all the others reliant on their old copper telephony infrastructure as we extend our lead as Britain’s ultrafast broadband provider.”