Virgin Media Business launches Big Red Internet

Cloud computing launch also planned in the coming months

Virgin Media's new package is aimed at businesses

Virgin Media’s business arm has launched a new comms package aimed at businesses, called Big Red Internet.

The package will be unlimited in download and upload capacity, and provided at a flat fee at two speeds, 100Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s, according to Virgin Media Business managing director Mark Heraghty.

Heraghty explained that the company is able to offer the solution because the network is already dimensioned for a consumer traffic peak at about 10pm. The peak it has been designed to accommodate is 30 to 40 times greater than is needed during the day. "During business hours, our network is effectively unused and we want to utilise the extra capacity," he said.

Heraghty cited the drivers for uptake as being e-commerce web site peaks at Christmas, tube strikes turning normal office workers into home workers and remote workers.

Pricing for unmanaged and managed 100 Mbit/s bearer will be £12,000 and £13,000 per annum respectively.

An unmanaged and managed 1 Gbit/s bearer will cost £22,000 and £25,000 per annum respectively.

The service will be available for customers to order tomorrow, added Heraghty, with a 65-working-day timeline. “But that’s the longest period of time it will take to install,” he said, “in cases where we have to dig up the road and lay fibre into customers’ premises.”

Customers can also opt for a managed or unmanaged service, with the managed service using a Cisco router installed at the customer's premises. Heraghty said that in his opinion most customers would go for the managed service.

For the next step in Virgin Media Business’s strategy, Heraghty said the company was looking at a cloud computing service expected to be announced "in months rather than years".

Orange Business Services recently announced the formation of a business alliance, called Flexible 4 Business, to offer end-to-end cloud computing services for enterprises.

The alliance sees Orange teaming up with the Arcadia group, consisting of network giant Cisco, storage firm EMC and virtualisation leader VMware.