Annex

Finding the perfect data connection to meet the demands of your business

Technologies

Traditional - Cable Broadband Overview

An alternative to telephone broadband, but only if your business is in a Virgin Media cabled area.

Business service piggy backs on consumer multi-play service and delivers real speeds close to the advertised maximum regardless of location.

Guide Figures
Down Speedt
360Mb
Up Speed
36Mb
Typical Cost
£32-62 p.m.
Asymmetric - Cable -  Built on consumer entertainment network
Built on consumer entertainment network

Virgin Media is the sole UK Cable provider. They are best known for the multi-play TV + Telephone + Broadband consumer services but also offer business broadband services over the same infrastructure. They do offer a double play for micro businesses with Broadband + Telephone.

The network is wholly independent of BT but does have many similarities to FTTC. The national fibre optic network reaches down to street cabinets where it switches to copper coaxial cable for the ‘last mile’

Virgin Media Business (VMB) offer down channel speeds of 2, 10 and 20Mb with the up channel running between 0.5 and 1Mb. Distance from the cabinet seems to have relatively little impact on the actual speed with most users achieving close to the headline value.

One curiosity is IP addressing. On the 2 and 10Mb services you can only have one fixed IP address and VMB reserve the right to change it. On the 20Mb service you cannot have any fixed IP address thus making it totally unsuitable for any inbound services including SMTP email.