Nextgen 10 (3): Virgin Media's roll-out
25 November 2010
The Virgin Media speaker was Dale Barnes, Director of Advanced Technologies and Innovation. The company has already upgraded the whole of its network - which covers about half the UK - to provide up to 50 Mbps with three broadband options on offer - up to 10, 20 and 50 Mbps respectively - and he claimed that over 750,000 customers are now paying for 2o Mbps or more.
He described the next stage of the company's investment programme which is to upgrade the whole of the network to provide up to 100 Mbps by mid 2012. This 100 Mbps option is available for £45 a month as a stand alone service or £35 a month as part of a bundle.
Dale Barnes explained that VM wishes to provide services beyond its current network coverage and described a trial in Crumlin in South Wales which involves using Western Power's infrastructure to deliver fibre to rural areas. The fibre provides two wave lengths to VM and two GPON wave lengths to other Distribution Network Operators. In response to a question from the floor, however, he made it clear that the company has no intention of opening up its main cable network to use by other operators.
Meanwhile a major concern of Virgin Media is the current advertising rules in relation to broadband speeds being represented as up to X Mbps. This is seen as unfair to VM since its typical speeds are close to its up to speeds (and are published quarterly now) whereas, for DSL competitors, actual speeds fall so far below advertised up to speeds. The company is running a campaign with a web site called Stop The Broadband Con.