Virgin says one third of the UK has access to 100Mb broadband

Cable ISP Virgin Media announced that the firm has attained a UK broadband milestone of 100Mb broadband available to over 20 million people.

The company says that a third of the UK can now get 100Mb broadband, just a year after the firm first began the roll out of the superfast fibre-based network.

The latest regions to be enabled for 100Mb service include Harborne in Birmingham, Lincoln, Seven Kings in Greater London and Solihull. Virgin says that the ISP remains on track to complete the roll out across the entire Virgin network by the middle of next year.

The company continued to bang the drum against broadband advertising practices, welcoming the ASA’s assertion that ISPs must be able to deliver headline rated speeds to at least 1-in-10 customers.

"Too many adverts which don’t meet even that low threshold," said Virgin broadband boss Jon James.

Virgin also reported that demand for faster broadband packages was accelerating with 178,000 more customers signing up to 30Mb or faster packages in the last three months.

Over half of the firm’s customers (54%) opted for the faster packages, bring the total to over half a million. That said, the company has been tempting customers to higher speed packages with marketing incentives such as the new offer of six months of free access to Spotify Premium.