Virgin Media is set to debut a broadband package for gamers, which it claims could offer download speeds of up to 200Mbps, and uploads of 20Mbps.



The new Vivid 200 Gamer bundle will be available from Thursday. It will, we're told, serve as an add-on to the cable company's fastest broadband package, Vivid 200.

Virgin Media promises that the new offer will boost upload speeds—which are all-important for serious gamers—from 12Mbps under the current Vivid 200 package to 20Mbps for an additional £5 per month. Put another way, it will cost subscribers £50 per month for a broadband-only contract.

BT's Unlimited BT Infinity 2 offering—which is the telecoms giant's current top-tier package—has a theoretical maximum upload speed of 19Mbps, though not every customer will get 19Mbps.

Virgin Media's consumer chief Gregor McNeil said that while the service was being targeted mostly at gamers, streamers, and casters, serial uploaders would also benefit. He said: “We understand the frustrations when it comes to lag, disconnects and bandwidth issues, so right from the start we wanted to design a tier that builds on our superior connectivity to give gamers and streamers what they need.”

The telco claimed that the connection will be "totally unlimited," and that players "don’t need to worry about download caps"—though it was rapped in 2013 by the UK advertising regulator for misleading customers with similar claims. Virgin Media is one of the few UK ISPs to throttle upstream bandwidth, even on its top-tier Vivid 200 package.

Ars asked the company if its gamer package would similarly have its upload speed throttled. "Nope—no caps," a spokesperson told us, before adding: "Obviously 'fair usage' policies will apply but you’d need to be doing more than gaming/streaming to break those."

Streaming and casting games is increasingly serious business. According to Virgin Media, "last year on Twitch alone users streamed 241 billion minutes of video—or 459,000 years' worth," which "works out at around 20 billion minutes of video per month, up from 16 billion in 2014."

Here's a link to Virgin Media's latest "traffic management policy thresholds."