Virgin Media O2 Build 1Gbps Fibre to 5,000 Homes in Ash Green
Some 5,000 homes in the large suburban Warwickshire (England) village of Ash Green can now access gigabit broadband speeds from Virgin Media (VMO2), which occurred after the UK ISP extended the reach of their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based internet and pay TV network into the area.
The work forms part of their ongoing Project Lightning build, which has already extended their network to cover an additional 2.5 million UK premises since 2015/16. The operator’s original network was deployed using Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) technology, but this expansion used “full fibre” FTTP via Radio Frequency Over Glass (RFoG) – both methods make use of the DOCSIS 3.1 standard to harness the same consumer kit (routers etc.).
VMO2 also recently announced that they intend to upgrade their entire network (including some 14.3 million premises in existing HFC areas) to FTTP by the end of 2028 (here). On top of that they’re also proposing (here) to expand the reach of their network, using FTTP, to cover c.7 million premises in new areas (some of these will be rural). A wholesale solution for UK ISPs is also being prepared.
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 and Linkedin.
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5,000 more that’ll have XGSPON available in the not too distant future. Excellent.
It’s absolutely bonkers that a 1gbps service only has 52mbps upload speeds. It’s made working from home a total nightmare this last year or so.
It really hasn’t made working from home hard, at all. Quit exaggerating.
try working with 50Mbps down and 7Mbps up. 1GBps would be an absolute godsend for me. Don’t complain about what others don’t have!
And it’s £62 pound having a laugh virgin media I just wait until Black Friday before I haggle with virgin again .
I would rather see 100/100 than 1000/50. Right now i’m on 500/35 and i’d be more than happy to lower my download speed and get say 100 up but the next package up for me is 1000/50 (actually they say it’s 1130/52) at twice what i’m paying now .. but I have no need for 1000 down so i’d be paying twice as much for 17mbit extra upload. I think I read somewhere on a forum that they only do DOCSIS3.1 on the download stream? not sure how true that is, but even with 3.0 they could be offering more than 50mbit upload.
Of course it’s better than having DSL, but they could give a better range of packages IMHO. The fact is some people can get better service than others, like farmers with XGSPON. Surely it’s not unreasonable that VM could offer different upload tiers on residential contracts.
@David – likely won’t see a discounted Gig1 anytime soon.
@Jahbulon – I’d rather see this as well but evidently most people are downloading more than uploading, Warzone updates being well in the double digit GBs as are other games following suite..
They offer as much upload as they reasonably can. Recent upgrades have gone to relieving congestion, not delivering new tiers.
Most of their network was built for cable TV and is very download heavy.
No point in extensive upgrades now given they plan to overbuild with full fibre.