Third quarter results from Virgin Media

Virgin Media is the main competitor to BT but the cable gaint offer its broadband UK services to 90 percent of its customers via its cable network. Although BT may be the largest UK broadband provider in terms of subscriptions, its customer base is divided between its consumer broadband and business broadband divisions. In comparison, Virgin Media’s consumer broadband (home broadband) customers outnumber BT Total home broadband as we know from the recent report released by the country’s leading cable broadband provider.

According to the financial results for the period ended on 30 September, 2007, total Virgin Media customers are 3,307,700 excluding its ADSL connections which account for just less than 10 percent (282,300).

If taken individually, cable broadband division of Virgin Media has added 115,800 customers, while it was just above seven thousand with its ADSL division.

Virgin is resolved to make its packages to be on par with ADSL+2 packages. The current 50 Mbps trial services and the upgrading of its existing packages to higher speeds will go on as planned as the thrust area will be the broadband speeds and better service quality.

The ISP is yet to decide on setting up of DOCSIS 3.0 which enhances the speeds on cable line, however, the issue of heavy investment for this project is yet to be resolved.

Currently, Virgin Media offers three broadband packages for its customers – Virgin Media Size M, Virgin Media Size L and Virgin Media Size XL. The speed of size L and Size XL has been upgraded in recent times and they offer 4 Mbps and 20 Mbps downstream respectively.