Virgin Media boss highlights broadband market segmentation

Virgin Media has said a divide is opening in the telecoms market between customers with super-fast fibre optic broadband packages and those with slower connections.

Neil Berkett, chief executive of the cable company, told the London Evening Standard that segmentation is a growing trend affecting communications providers.

"You are getting cheap and cheerful surfing on sub-10Mbps [connections] and getting serious data-savvy usage at 30Mbps and above," he explained.

Mr Berkett also believes the upcoming introduction of YouView will highlight the importance of high-speed broadband access.

BT, Virgin Media's main rival in the fibre optic broadband market, is set to launch its fastest service - with headline speeds of 330Mbps - next month and claims to have enjoyed success with the introduction of its Infinity packages.

Despite this competition, Virgin said it has not noticed any major impact on the popularity of its own super-fast broadband proposition.

The company began doubling the connection speeds received by all of its cable broadband customers in April.