Virgin Media is the UK's only national fibre optic cable provider. In December 2008, they announced a revolutionary 50Mb ultra fast broadband product. Their fibre optic network carries a phone line and Virgin TV, including 4,600 hours of exclusive on demand programming. Virgin Media organises its services into four sizes, M, L and XL, XXL(50Mb broadband only). You can select the size that best fits your lifestyle needs. Virgin Media encourages all subscribers to take their phone line for £11.99 a month. It's not necessary, but it does make the TV and broadband packages cheaper. At up to 50Mb, Virgin Media currently offers the fastest broadband of all UK providers. The fibre optic cable technology is future-proof because it does not rely on a telephone line. You do not have to share your cable with other subscribers, so your service won't slow down during peak times. The basic broadband package (L) includes a 10Mb connection and unlimited downloads. Broadband XL gets you the full20Mb. Virgin Media's digital TV packages offer between 40 - 160 channels. Premium movies and sports packages are also available. Virgin Media TV subscribers get access to 500 films and thousands of shows on demand. Watch them when you want, pause them, rewind them. It's as easy as watching a DVD. Virgin Media is the only provider that lets you watch BBC iPlayer on your TV. So if you've missed your favourite BBC show, you don't have to settle for watching it on a computer monitor. Virgin Media also has the V+ Box, a personal video recorder to rival Sky's Sky+ HD Box. It lets you pause and rewind live TV. You can record two programmes at once, while watching a third. XL TV subscribers get the V+ box for free. Everyone else has to pay a monthly fee to 'rent' the box from Virgin Media.