Broadband ISP and TV provider Virgin Media UK (VMO2) has announced that an additional 10,000 homes across West Yorkshire, including in Otley, Menston, Burley-in-Wharfedale and Guiseley, have now gained access to their gigabit-capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.
Across the UK, Virgin’s Project Lightning network build has already extended their network to cover almost 2.7 million extra UK premises since 2015/16. The operator’s original network was deployed using Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) technology, but since 2019/20 most of their new build has used FTTP via Radio Frequency Over Glass (RFoG) – both methods make use of the DOCSIS 3.1 standard to harness the same consumer kit.
In addition, VMO2 recently announced that they intend to upgrade their entire network – including some 14.3 million premises in existing HFC areas – to symmetric speed capable XGS-PON based FTTP by the end of 2028 (here), with trials taking place at 50,000 homes in Stoke, Salisbury and Wakefield (here).
On top of that, the operator has also proposed to expand the reach of their network, using FTTP, to cover a further c.7 million premises in new areas (here), but no solid plan has been confirmed for that.. yet.
Madness isn’t it. I mean every other company starts with the most difficult of tasks first so they can put their feet up and admire their hard work. How silly of them to work from easiest (and likely most profitable) to hardest.
Very true, I’m on the other side of West Yorkshire in Hebden Bridge and they won’t touch a market town of our size. Virgin fibre broadband has only gone as far as Halifax and they’ve shown no interest in supplying the market towns / villages between Halifax and Rochdale. Hebden has at least been added to the Openreach full fibre upgrade program, but that’s still possibly 4 years away and providing those targets are not missed or rolled back.
Share your pain. Every single street round me has VMB but not mine.
They decided to do it in the days of “cable my street” did the survey but never went ahead and no proper explanation why
No FTTP either but that’s life
I’ve got VM but no openreach besides 30mbit DSL. No FTTP build out. A lot of people wish for VM, well I have to use a Huawei 4G modem and a dual wan router because I work at home and VM is unreliable here.
I would hope new build properties have 1000 available straight off. Everything newly built should be FTTP unless it’s a tiny development.
Ahmed: If it’s a single dwelling unit street it came in outside of their budget, if it’s apartments could also be a wayleave problem. Either way per my comment above they aren’t going to infill HFC now.
Same mate… And the areas they just announced are basically the same as openreach is working on atm… So some areas in Leeds will have 3 1gig suppliers while others have only ADSL or VDSL speeds
You might get lucky, once the FTTP is available Openreach will obvs start wiring up the easiest ducts and poles. I’m not clear what their current policy is, they seem to be throwing everything they have at Cardiff, Swansea, Bristol and Birmingham down South, surprisingly patchy in London, although I assume that’s because they have a relatively recent upgrade to 80meg virtually throughout.
I’m personally looking at whether 5G external antennas are a better solution in my area. 4G+ will easily top 120meg in area without even using an external antenna.
Ben: It would cost too much to reach you I imagine. Cost is the usual issue. From what I know of the area there would be a fair amount of traffic management involved. VM own their own national network, they don’t use PIA for longer haul. It gets expensive to dig through hard surfaces really fast, especially when it’s an A road with small pavements forcing traffic management.
Damien: Presumably a good reason to have missed that street out originally and might not have the capacity to serve it without building a new cabinet, which they aren’t going to do when they’re upgrading everything to FTTP. Once FTTP is enabled and in service in the area they can likely look at it again but RF power / power supply unable to handle another powered cabinet / no taps is the most likely thing on their hybrid network.
They stopped new HFC builds a while back and have stopped HFC infill.
Meh, the crazy thing is I remember 56kbs being a revolutionary speed
Can someone explain whats the difference of VMs methods, for example they FTTP builds still get the same plans as the DOCSIS3.1? An example i can get 1gb and 50 upload with they DOCSIS3.1 so will the FTTP get that too? Or will it be 1gb download and upload?
Everything gets the same plans right now however this is changing soon as FTTP areas are enabled for symmetrical services.
As VM overbuild the HFC areas with FTTP they’ll join the party too.
Can’t say for sure that the products will be symmetrical but the network will be.
They are doing a fairly large expansion in parts of Sheffield too.
Not sure they are going to get many customers, they’ve infilled on a Fibre First exchange so lots of people are in 24month FTTP contracts already and they’ve clearly gone for the cheapest cowboys/contractors to install.
Duct installation on an A road caused chaos as they didn’t setup the traffic lights right, they installed a cabinet in a different street to the one they got the permit for (and was incorrect for other reasons too), installed some Tobys with another providers name on them and the tarmac infill is terrible.
Their fibre splicers did the work on a busy A road with no permit over the weekend, roadworks guarding was the splicer box blocking the narrow pavement one end and a open door on one of the vans the other coupled with an aggressive yob hurling abuse at pedestrians who needed to pass. Their larger van had no visible number plate due to the fibre drum trailer. They were blocking the pavement and one lane of the road for several hours to do this at the change from 30MPH to 50MPH speed limit.
That needs reporting. That’s awful.
They did a family members street in one of these areas, knocked on the door early, said move your cars now if you need them or you’ll be blocked in for the day, staff shouting and swearing and at one point fighting which a supervisor had to break up. Blocked both ends of the road to 50+ houses and I personally witnessed a truck blocking the road and a resident asking if they can pass being shouted at and told to back off and wait by the VM ‘engineer’ also post install aggressively pushy people going door to door for sales, they’ve got an extremely bad rep on local social media groups over how this was done and lots are avoiding.
That also needs reporting. That’s unacceptable from the, likely Heneghan, contractors.