VM: '200Mbps broadband a few years away'

Virgin Media has revealed that its 200Mbps broadband service is "a few years" away from becoming commercially available in the UK.

During the Ideal Home Show at Earl's Court Exhibition Centre in London, Virgin Media showcased the high-speed service, which has been under trial at Ashford, Kent, since last summer.

After running speed tests, the service delivered an actual connection of around 185Mbps, but Virgin Media head of media relations (consumer) Asam Ahmad said that is equivalent with service delivery levels across its existing packages.

He said that many factors can affect broadband speeds, such as whether users are operating wired or wireless connections, and what time of day it is.

Ahmad demonstrated the connection's capability by running two 50Mbps downloads of software packages and then accessing a streamed BBC HD programme on iPlayer.

Despite such a heavy data load on the connection, the streamed programme did not slow down, take excessive time to buffer or stutter in any way.

The high-speed service also enables a music album to be downloaded in just three seconds, an hour-long TV show in 16 seconds and a high definition movie in only three minutes, 42 seconds.

The 200Mbps service runs over Virgin Media's Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification (DOCSIS) 3.0, which uses channel bonding to support multiple downstream and upstream channels at the same time without disruption to the connection performance.

Virgin Media intends to use the technology to commercially launch a 100Mbps service to customers by the end of the year.

Ahmad claimed that the 200Mbps trial in Ashford is the fastest known broadband pilot in the world using DOCSIS 3, with a similar scheme to start soon for around 100 households in Coventry, West Midlands.

However, he said that 200Mbps broadband is most likely "a few years" away from going into commercial launch across the Virgin Media network.

When it does arrive, Virgin Media believes that the high-speed connection will not just appeal to early adaptors and heavy users, but also families and shared households where multiple devices are connected to the web at any one time.