Cable operator Virgin Media has announced new plans to "extend" its Cable Modem (DOCSIS/EuroDOCSIS 3.0) based broadband, phone and TV platform by teaming up with one of the country's biggest builders of new homes - Persimmon Homes. Persimmon designs and builds around 10,000 new homes across the UK each year.

However, according to Virgin Media, only selected Persimmon new build homes "in cabled areas" will start to be constructed with built-in access to their service. In other words, the general coverage of Virgin's underlying cable platform won't actually be extended at all.

On the bright side Virgin's move will make it a lot easier for new home buyers to get connected. Sadly customers moving in to non-cabled areas will only have the option of the Virgin National (Virgin.net ADSL) service, which uses an old copper line platform that the operator frequently denigrates for its poor performance.


It's worth pointing out that Virgin Media is also "part-way through a significant cable expansion programme", which aims to bring their service(s) to a further 500,000 households that have previously been unreachable.

Virgin Media are already running Berkshire (Wales) trials that use telegraph poles to deliver super-fast 50Mbps broadband services via new fibre optic cables. Furthermore Virgin believes it has identified more than 1 Million homes across parts of the UK that could potentially benefit from fibre optic deployment via telegraph poles.