Virgin Media is Doubling Customer Broadband Speeds for Free

In an inexplicably awesome and unexpected move, Virgin Media is going to start doubling all its customers’ broadband speed for free, you know, just for kicks. Virgin Media already provides the fastest Internet available in the U.K. at 100 Mbps, but it looks like that speed is going to get even faster, and for free. I cannot stress that enough. The whole process will cost Virgin Media around $168.5 million, but I suppose the positive press might be worth that. They’re also providing new hardware to anyone who’ll need it to make the most of the speed boost. Also free of charge.

The best part is that this isn’t even the first time that Virgin Media has done this. Back in September of 2010, they doubled everyone’s upload speed for free. Granted, the “doubling” term is just slightly inaccurate. About 74% percent of Virgin Media’s customers use the baseline 10 Mbps plan; they’ll be getting doubled to 20Mbps. People with 20 or 30 move up to 60, and 50 goes to 100, but the guys who already have 100 are just going to get an extra 20. Still, not bad for free. Good on Virgin Media for taking steps to advance everyone’s tech even with no direct benefit. I wish more compainies did stuff like this. I’d take a free doubling of just about anything I pay for. I’m looking at you, Time Warner.

(via Neowin)

Relevant to your interest in Virgin doing cool stuff

• Virgin Galactic
• Virgin Oceanic

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Eric Limer