Virgin Media Finish FTTP Broadband Build in Shildon and Templepatrick

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK has announced that they’ve completed the deployment of their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based “ultrafast broadband” network to 2,000 extra premises in the town of Shildon (Durham, England) and 600 premises in Templepatrick (N.Ireland), which can now access download speeds of 516Mbps (soon 1Gbps).

The work is part of Virgin Media’s on-going Project Lightning linked effort to extend their network coverage out to an additional 16,000 premises across Durham by the end of 2019, which was delayed a bit last year due to an initial dispute over local fees for land access (here). Thankfully that was settled some time ago and the work has been proceeding at pace ever since.

Locals in Shildon will also be able to get even faster speeds (1Gbps) once Virgin Media has completed their UK rollout of DOCSIS 3.1 technology by the end of 2021 (here).

Hugh Woolford, VM’s Regional Director for North East and Yorkshire, said:

“We are delighted to have finished our expansion in Shildon. Good quality, fast broadband is a staple of modern-day life, so it’s fantastic news that now more than 2,000 residents and small businesses in Shildon can access the UK’s fastest widely available network.”

Despite this we do wish that Virgin Media would take a leaf out of Openreach’s book and issue a more comprehensive forward rollout plan, as opposed to piecemeal announcements about completed coverage.

UPDATE 10:41am

Since posting this Virgin Media has also announced the completion of their build to 600 premises in the tiny Northern Ireland town of Templepatrick, which is home to just 2,500 people.