Virgin Media has brought the UK’s fastest broadband connection to Whitchurch in North Shropshire! Whitchurch is actually better known for its making of Cheshire cheese than its UK-leading 50Mbps broadband speed.
This means that the town can now receive fibre optic broadband at more than six times the headline speed of most UK domestic broadband connections. However, the average broadband speed in the UK was less than 3Mpbs in 2008, so the lucky burghers of Whitchurch are able to connect more than sixteen times faster than the average UK broadband customer.
The huge speed increase means that a 90Mb music album can be downloaded in as little as 17 seconds and a 15Gb high definition film in forty five minutes.
Another benefit of fibre optic broadband is that, unlike the broadband using copper telephine wires, it doesn’t get slower the further away from the telephone exchange that you are situated. Now, I live just seventy metres from a telephone exchange and even I can’t get the 8Mbps for which I pay, though I do receive a double-the-average 6.3Mbps download and a 355kps upload speed.
Frustrated Internet users in other parts of the UK will be surprised to learn that Virgin Media’s price for such a speedy connection is just £35 per month. Perhaps it is too much to hope that this will put a downward pressure on the existing prices of UK ISPs who are providing businesses and consumers will an average speed that now clearly leaves them at a substantial disadvantage.
Of course, Virgin Media themselves may now find they are under pressure to provide their cable service to the many towns and areas that are not currently covered by their fibre optic network.
