Virgin Media Build Cable Network in Scotland to 360000 Extra Premises

Virgin Media (Liberty Global) has confirmed that an additional 360,000 homes and businesses in Scotland are set to benefit from their on-going £3bn Project Lightning network expansion by 2019. Elsewhere 19,000 have separately been confirmed for the roll-out in Cambridgeshire (England).

The project is currently working to expand Virgin Media’s 300Mbps capable cable broadband and TV network across the United Kingdom by an extra 4 million premises (total of 17 million), which should push their national coverage up to around 60-65%. On top of that roughly 1 million of the new premises will use the best Fibre-to-the-Premise (FTTP) technology.

The good news is that Virgin Media has already begun their expanded deployment in Scotland, which can be seen around Falkirk and Ayrshire. Initially 70,000 premises in Dunfermline, Dalgety Bay, Inverkeithing and Rosyth will benefit, before moving into Fife. Meanwhile work is also taking place to bring the network to 55,000 premises in Kilmarnock, Ayr, Prestwick and Irvine.

Plus, the Scottish villages of Kirknewton (West Lothian), Kilmacolm, Houston, Crosslee, Craigends and Bridge of Weir (Renfrewshire) were also amongst the top ten communities in its ‘Supercharging Local Communities‘ initiative earlier this year (here and here).

Martin McFadyen, Virgin Media’s Director for Scotland, said:

“We are delighted to be expanding our network to bring better broadband, faster connectivity and top-notch TV to more premises across Scotland. Our ambition is to give more people in Scotland the broadband boost they deserve. We urge local councils and landlords to work with us to ensure this expansion happens as quickly as possible.”

Naturally the Scottish Government‘s Cabinet Secretary for the Rural Economy and Connectivity, Fergus Ewing MSP, has also been keen to take some credit for Virgin Media’s private investment.

Fergus Ewing said:

“I welcome the news that Virgin Media will be rolling out ultrafast broadband to over 300,000 premises in Scotland alongside launching the first Scottish Tech City in Glasgow. The Scottish Government has put digital connectivity at the heart of its agenda, recognising that broadband is vital to the sustainability of our economy and communities. That is why we have made the commitment to ensure that 100% of premises across Scotland will have access to superfast broadband by 2021.

Commercial investment will play a huge part in delivering that commitment and I am delighted to welcome the substantial investment that Virgin Media are making in Scotland.”

Separately Virgin Media has announced that their roll-out in Cambridgeshire is set to reach 19,000 more premises in areas such as Wimblington, March, Doddington and Chatteris, with completion expected by spring 2017. It’s interesting to note that some of those due to be covered are in rural areas.

Meanwhile anybody who wants more information on Scotland’s 2021 target for 100% coverage of “superfast broadband” should check out last month’s article (here), which offers a bit more detail about the very tentative plan.