Virgin Media has begun offering a new service which provides gigabit download speeds via DOCSIS 3.1 technology, with coverage initially limited to the city of Southampton. In a press release announcing the launch of ‘Gig1’, the operator confirmed that around 100,000 premises in Southampton have access to the new offering, while it said it will extend coverage to another unnamed ‘major’ UK city ‘in the coming weeks’.
Virgin Media’s Gig1 service offers an ‘average peak-time’ download speed of 1.104Gbps, and is available to both new and existing customers, either as standalone product, or bundled with a combination of fixed voice, pay-TV and/or mobile voice. The standalone variant of the service is priced at GBP62 (USD76) per month on an 18-month contract, while the quad-play provider has said that customers taking the new service will also benefit from a guaranteed price freeze for at least 24 months.
Commenting, Virgin Media’s chief operating officer, Jeff Dodds, said: ‘By launching our hyperfast Gig1 services in Southampton today, we’re marking the start of next-generation gigabit connectivity across our entire network at a speed and scale unmatched by anyone else … The Government has called for nationwide gigabit connectivity and we’re helping them leap forward to reach this ambition.’