Virgin Media has doubled the speed of its premium network around the country.

The company said it is making 1GB broadband available to almost one million homes and businesses.

It said it makes Virgin Ireland’s largest gigabit broadband provider.

On Breakfast Business with Vincent Wall this morning Paul Higgins, Vice President Commercial at Virgin Media said the move underlines the company’s “continued, committed investment” in the Irish market.

“It is in excess of €1bn,” he said. “We have always fronted up to that investment on infrastructure, capacity, expansion and innovation and the reason we can make this announcement today is because of that investment.

“We are investing for customers to give everybody those options – not just a selected few.”

He said the company has logged a 40% increase in broadband usage since March with more people forced to work from home due to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, the number of devices connected to the Virgin network has more than doubled.

“The demand for speed is there and it will continue. We see usage double every two years. People want to do more with their broadband, whether that is smart home devices or more people downloading or streaming movies.

“You know a HD movie can be downloaded in 16 seconds now – none of this 10 or 15 minutes waiting time.

“We have more people using more broadband, using it for lots of different things and everyone wants it as quickly as they can.”

Customer who want to avail of the new speeds will have to sign up for a new router.