Virgin Media Broadband Subs Top 5.2M as 109K New Premises Covered UPDATE

The latest financial update (calendar Q3 2018) from cable ISP Virgin Media (Liberty Global) has seen them add a further 109,000 UK premises to their ultrafast broadband and TV network coverage, while their internet access subscriber base hit 5,202,900 (up by 36.4k in Q3 vs 30k in Q2 and 31.2k in Q1).

Unfortunately the past quarter has delivered some turbulence for the national cable operator, which has seen disagreements over UKTV channels (here), annual price hikes (here) and concern over the slower than expected pace of their £3bn Project Lightning network expansion (here) occupying the headlines.

Speaking of the network expansion, Virgin’s FTTP and Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) based EuroDOCSIS cable broadband and TV network has reached an additional 1.4 million UK premises since Project Lightning began in 2015/16 (around 300,000 of those have adopted it). The original aim was to cover 4 million extra premises (17 million total or c.60% of the UK) by the end of 2019 or 2020 but 3 million+ now seems to be a safer bet.

Quarterly (Calendar) Project Lightning Rollout
Q3 2018 = 109,000 Premises
Q2 2018 = 118,000 Premises
Q1 2018 = 111,000 Premises (likely impacted by heavy snow)
Q4 2017 = 159,000 Premises
Q3 2017 = 147,000 Premises
Q2 2017 = 127,000 Premises
Q1 2017 = 102,000 Premises

Meanwhile the operator also confirmed that they had a total Mobile (EE MVNO) customer base of 3,031,200 (down from 3,034,400 in the last quarter) and 77% of their broadband base is now on an ultrafast (100Mbps+) capable package (up from 76%).

We should also add that they have 4,540,700 telephone customers in the UK (up from 4,486,100) and 3,901,400 video / TV users (up from 3,888,400), while 68% of their broadband base is using the Hub 3.0 (SuperHub v3) router (up from 61%).

Mike Fries, CEO of Liberty Global, said:

“The continued operating and financial momentum at Virgin Media helped fuel our Q3 results. With respect to our U.K. subscriber growth, we generated over 100,000 net additions, which represents a record third quarter performance. This achievement was supported by strong volume growth in both our Project Lightning and legacy footprints.

From a product perspective, we continue to reap the benefits of our next-generation V6 set-top box and Hub 3 WiFi router deployments, as we saw meaningful year-over-year improvement in churn. We also announced a 4.5% average U.K. customer price rise, which should underpin our results in the coming quarters.”

Sadly the update doesn’t give us any hints about their upgrade plans for the future Gigabit capable DOCSIS 3.1 broadband technology (the underlying network is currently being upgraded to support it), although we have separately heard some unofficial whispers that Virgin Media may be preparing to trial a new 1Gbps residential service using their FTTP network to a small number of new build premises.

Likewise we’ve longed suspected that they might be able to squeeze a little bit more speed out of their existing EuroDOCSIS 3.0 network, possibly reaching as high as 500Mbps, although realistically we think they’d do better to focus on improving their weak upload performance. So far the hints we’ve had point to 500Mbps appearing first for Virgin Media Business customers during H1 2019.

One other big question mark concerns Virgin’s next Hub 4.0 (SuperHub v4) router, which hasn’t been announced but seems likely to be based on Liberty Global’s new Gigabit Connect Box (Connect Box 2) or possibly a re-branded version of AVM’s similarly featured FRITZ!Box 6591 Cable router (2533Mbps WiFi speed – Intel chipset).

Both are DOCSIS 3.1 devices and are being used in other parts of Liberty’s cable network around Europe. The previous Hub 3.0 router was also called the Connect Box elsewhere in Europe, which arguably makes the Gigabit Connect Box the most likely candidate for the UK. By comparison the FRITZ!Box is more aimed at SME business users.

The GCB, which is pictured below, features 4 x Gigabit LAN ports, as well as the usual 2 x Analogue Telephone ports (handy for VM’s VoIP phone service) and we understand that the theoretical WiFi peak speed via 5GHz and 2.4GHz is 2183Mbps (slower in the real-world, as per usual). Sadly there are no USB ports but we understand that it may have support for Bluetooth, which is something that you don’t often see in routers.

We did ask Virgin Media about the talk of a 1Gbps FTTP trial for new builds and the possibility of them launching a Gigabit Connect Box, albeit re-branded and coloured black in the UK. The official response on both counts is that they “have nothing to announce at this time.”

Finally, on the financial front, the operator reported quarterly UK geographic revenue of £1,184.0m (up from £1,137.7m at the same time last year).

UPDATE:

Corrected the previous quarter’s figures for TV, Mobile and Phone above as we accidentally included the UK/Ireland ones for those.

UPDATE 11th Nov 2018

Liberty Global’s CEO has stated that Virgin Media’s Project Lightning is currently “building in the £650 to £700 cost per premise range … we’re hitting 30% to 35% penetration after 3 years, and we’re getting better every quarter at selecting high-return build products.”