Avon Group Signs Virgin Media to Upgrade 10000 UK Properties
The London-based property investment firm Avon Group has today signed a 2 year partnership with UK fibre ISP Virgin Media, which will see the operator upgrade some 10,000 properties across London, Birmingham and Leeds to support their new gigabit-capable broadband and TV network.
The Avon Group typically serves large apartment blocks (Multi-Dwelling Units) in dense urban areas, such as the example cities mentioned above. Residents in such blocks will gain access to Virgin Media’s various broadband and TV bundles, with average headline speeds of 516Mbps (due to hit 1Gbps+ by 2021) and the option of a 4G mobile SIM.
At present there’s a big focus from operators on upgrading MDUs to support gigabit-capable broadband services, not least because of the Government’s imminent new law for tackling “rogue landlords” (here and here).
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Paul Rusby, Business Development Director at Virgin Media, said:
“This is great news for thousands of tenants who will be able to access a range of our incredible services, including the UK’s fastest widely available broadband speeds. This is a brilliant partnership which increases awareness of our products and services and we’ll be looking to explore similar opportunities.”
The Avon Group contract also includes a possibility to extend after the initial 2 year period.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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Is this for properties owned or managed by the Avon Group? Is there a list of eligible properties available anywhere?
This is great news for tenants. It’s a lot of work for VM even if they can easily get a cable into a lockbox on the ground floor of an apartment building as every flat needs to be capable of getting service, although if it exists it may be possible to connect to an Integrated Reception System (needs I think a new faceplate).
I looked at several new build properties when I was buying a house, they all had a faceplate for sky TV. I don’t understand why buildings can’t build a cabinet and ducts to the basement like they do in Sweden and wire them up when required.
If someone in Stockholm wants fibre it takes them a couple of hours to run an ethernet cable to the basement and hook up to a switch connected to a fibre terminator / or a cable splitter. Why do it afterwards?
It’s often afterwards for reasons including:
– some of the MDUs were built before cable was in the area
– the developer didn’t strike a deal with the cable operator
– the developer was uncontactable or unresponsive so the cable operator could do nothing