BT has laid into Virgin Media's plans to launch 100Mbits/sec broadband later this year, branding the offer as too expensive.

The superfast broadband arena is getting competitive – which can only be a good thing for Britain – and the gloves are off as the two leading providers spar in the lead up to 100Mbits/sec services.

“Their new service is more than twice the price of BT's fibre product and so we are surprised by the high price when most family budgets are tight," said BT. “Take up is as important as availability... so we would question why Virgin are charging such a premium.”

Virgin plans to start offering a 100Mbits/sec service later this year, with barebones services priced at £45 a month for the connection, or £35 if customers buy other services from the company.

BT has already started rolling out its Infinity fibre services, with a basic connection costing £20 a month, but price is only half the story.

BT's current offering at £20 is a Fibre-to-the-Cabinet service which offers “up to” 40Mbits/sec download speeds, and comes with a 40GB download limit. On a straight Mbit/pound ratio, Virgin's price looks competitive at 50p/Mbit.

Virgin also points out that cable customers don't need to pay BT line rental, which adds another £10 a month to telecoms bills.

It is unknown what BT plans to charge when it starts to roll out its 100Mbits/sec Fibre-to-the-Premises services, possibly as early as next year. Virgin's 50Mbits/sec costs £28 a month.

BT also couldn't resist making a dig at the fact that BT has to make its network available to rival ISPs throught its wholesale commitments.

The company agreed Virgin's offer would add competition for consumers on the network, “albeit a network that is isn’t open to other companies in the way BT’s is”.


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BT really are clueless, aren't they?

BT are saying VM are too expensive!? Pot, kettle? Irony?

VM's service will get cheaper I expect, but I really don't see how BT can justify £27.99 pcm (excluding line rental) for Option 3 ADSL (unlimited)...

...which in most areas is 2mb/s (but only at 3am for about half an hour)

Virgin might be a little expensive but the fact the fact that it is uncapped more than makes up for that. BT's 40Gb cap is very low. On a couple of occasions I have done more than that in over night. Rainbow tables alone exceed that.

I can see their point in a way. I (for example) have got line rental, unlimited landline calls 24/7 and 10GB downlaods at 8mbps for just over £20 per month. It's fast enough for my needs so why would I pay a huge premium to get faster? Maybe I could be tempted by a small premium for extra speed, but not that much.

Yes the line rental is the pain. You have to pay it regardless of whether you use the phone. Though Virgin do have unlimited downloads (outside the capped times) so it is would be better to say that you are not paying for the speed but the lack of a cap.

Thing is even in peak time it's unlimited, they just throttle you if you are using too much data for a few hours then it resumes

Sent from my GT-I9000 using Tapatalk

Not quite they have a 7Gb limit between 9 am and 3 pm and a 3G limit between 4 pm and 9 pm. I usually do my updates in the after noon as I can do it daily so does not add up to much. Though I did have a huge 2Gb update one day, on two machines which took me over the limit. Even though both downloads were finished by 6pm before the heavy usage, I got a detrimental use of broadband letter a few days later.

Sure, but BT's "equivalent" service, ie. an unlimited one, is £27.99 + £12 line rental. So you've got "up to" 8mb ADSL from BT for nigh-on £40pcm, or 100mb fibre-optic from VM for £45....er, is that really a choice?

In fairness BT Infinity ('Fibre' up to 40Mb) is the same monthly price but it's still 60Mb off the Virgin product (and 10 of the 50Mb VM product). An extra £5 for either 10 or 60 Mbps extra download isn't too bad really.

And BT Infinity has less coverage than an amoeba on a petri dish. Seriously, it's available in what, 3 areas? I also find it disturbing that BT will charge customers the same amount, whether they're receiving "up to 40mb" or a paltry 8mbps or less.