Virgin.net was an

Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides services for accessing, using, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, non-profit, or otherwise privat ...

(ISP) operating in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...

. It launched in November 1996. Once a joint venture between

NTL NTL may refer to: Companies * NTL Incorporated and NTL Internet, later Virgin Media, communications media company ** NTL Ireland, later Virgin Media Ireland * Arqiva, UK company formerly ''NTL Broadcast'' and ''National Transcommunications L ...

and the

Virgin Group Virgin Group Ltd. is a British multinational venture capital conglomerate founded by Richard Branson and Nik Powell in February 1970. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by the Companies House, who class it as a holding co ...

, the ISP became wholly owned by NTL in September 2004. The company sold a range of

ADSL Asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) is a type of digital subscriber line (DSL) technology, a data communications technology that enables faster data transmission over copper telephone lines than a conventional voiceband modem can provide. ...

broadband packages through BT

landline A landline (land line, land-line, main line, home phone, fixed-line, and wireline) is a telephone connection that uses metal wires or optical fiber telephone line for transmission, as distinguished from a mobile cellular network, which uses ...

s to those living outside areas served by NTL's

cable television Cable television is a system of delivering television programming to consumers via radio frequency (RF) signals transmitted through coaxial cables, or in more recent systems, light pulses through fibre-optic cables. This contrasts with bro ...

network. Virgin.net broadband customers could receive up to 8

Mbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits ( bitrate), characters or symbols ( baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are mu ...

downstream and 400

kbit/s In telecommunications, data-transfer rate is the average number of bits (bitrate), characters or symbols (baudrate), or data blocks per unit time passing through a communication link in a data-transmission system. Common data rate units are multi ...

upstream, with usage allowances depending on which package the user takes. Virgin.net also offered bundled phone services via

Carrier Preselect Carrier preselect is a term relating to the telecommunications industry. It is a method of routing calls for least-cost routing (LCR) without the need for programming of PBX telephone system. This is the process whereby a telephone subscriber who ...

(CPS) to broadband subscribers. Subscription based and subscription free dial-up Internet access was also available. Like most ISPs, Virgin.net had a

web portal A web portal is a specially designed website that brings information from diverse sources, like emails, online forums and search engines, together in a uniform way. Usually, each information source gets its dedicated area on the page for displayi ...

, covering topics such as music, movies, travel, technology and motoring. In February 2007, the company was incorporated into the newly established

Virgin Media Virgin Media is a British telecommunications company which provides telephone, television and internet services in the United Kingdom. Its headquarters are at Green Park in Reading, England. It is owned by Virgin Media O2, a 50:50 joint ventu ...

as Virgin Media Beyond Cable. In 2014, Virgin Media reached an agreement to sell its ADSL business (the former Virgin.net service) to

TalkTalk Group TalkTalk Telecom Group plc (commonly known as TalkTalk Group, trading as TalkTalk) is a company which provides pay television and Internet access services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 2003 as a subsidiary ...

, allowing Virgin to focus on its cable broadband offering. Customers began transferring to TalkTalk from February 2015.

References

External links

* {{Virgin Group Virgin Group Former internet service providers of the United Kingdom

See also

References

External links