Virgin Media O2 UK Extend 1Gbps Broadband to 20,000 Southall Homes
ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2) has confirmed that they’ve just expanded their gigabit-capable broadband network – via Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) technology – to cover an additional 20,000 homes in the large suburban town of Southalll, West London (England). The town is home to a total population of around 70,000.
Virgin’s now technically completed Project Lightning build has already covered 3 million homes (albeit a few years later than originally planned), and their overall UK network coverage was expected to complete at just over 16 million by the end of 2022 – the next quarterly results may confirm this. Some 14.3m of this is via their older Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network, with the rest using full fibre (FTTP) via Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) technology.
However, aside from upgrading that HFC to FTTP (XGS-PON) by 2028 (Project Mustang), the operator also plans to deploy full fibre broadband to an additional 5-7 million UK premises – via a new Joint Venture (JV) – in new greenfield areas by 2027 (here). The same company may also bid on the Government’s Project Gigabit contracts. Access to all this will be offered at wholesale for rival ISPs to harness.
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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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Lets just hope they have enough Hub 5s in stock so they don’t send out those crap Hub 4s and try to tell you they are just as good. I received a Hub 4 instead of a Hub 5 when I upgraded to 1Gbps fibre and the best speed I could get from the Hub 4 to my laptop over WiFi was about 460Mbps. Now I have managed to get a Hub 5, Sam Knows real speed test is telling me my WiFi is actually faster than my broadband. lol
Sam knows real speed tests from the hub not the device you are using so it shows the real speed of the connection not limited by internal hardware so you should be seeing around 1150 down and 53 up using it on gig 1
VM doesn’t have a monopoly in Southall: if you want faster broadband go for Community Fibre.
All you need to do is tell them you specifically want a hub 5, I am only on the 250 tier and I got a hub 5 via whatapp chat, just go to the install option and that you want to cancel… then when it asks for details why you want to cancel, say you don’t actually want to cancel, but you couldn’t see any other option.
Then say you specifically want a hub 5, I use that route quite a bit and I got a Hub 5 and wifi Pod for no charge that route… The hub 5 did take a week for delivery and they warned me of that, but I have one and well it works so much faster than my Hub 3 and I don’t have random Wi-Fi dropouts like i had with my Hub 3, I also have much better coverage and WiFi6 🙂
If it works for youh… You’re welcome 😉
53 up? is that a joke?
Standard VM. It’s usually at this point that someone says it’s the best they can do. But it’s actually not. They could do faster, some other DOCSIS networks do. Even DOCSIS 3.1 can do 2gbit upload (of course, that’s shared, but so is all cable networks). DOCSIS 4 can do 6gbit upload. But VMs FTTP network should be able to offer faster upload, must be a business decision not to. I’m grateful that i’m in the queue for a synchronous XGS-PON network so i’ll get 1gig up and down. VM have been ok, not great but better than openreach but for me at least there are now better options (and lower price) so I’ll be saying goodbye to VM very soon.
Yeah. I just did it again and the results were 1144Mbps for the broadband to the router and then exactly the same from the router to my laptop using WiFi.
Unfortunately 53Mbps up isn’t a joke. Well it is a joke really I suppose.
WiFi shouldn´t be used for testing anyways, it has nothing to do with the internet speed and it is not even close to the test reliability that Ethernet has.
I have CommunityFibre 600Mb and with their kit I get max ~450Mbps at mine, with my Mikrotik router I get even worse around ~300Mbps. That doesn´t mean my ISP has anything to do with the WiFi unpredictability.
I am awaiting the Hub 5 and Virgin Media advised that they don’t have any Hub 5 available so paying a higher price and not using the correct Hub.
Virgin Media you need to do something better. Thank you.
The HUB 4 is more than capable of supporting Gig1.
In your shoes as well-having being sent a hub 4 twice when requesting a hub 5 but out of the blue got a text from them yesterday indicating their awareness of me requesting hub 5 and will have one sent to me in the next couple of weeks! Here is hoping it wasnt a hoax and i dont receive another hub 4.
Carl speaking twaddle.
Firstly the hub4 is AC wifo not AX. So yo max the wifi for gig you’d generally want AX assuming you have AX capable devices.
Secondly there isn’t a 2.5gbps WAN port on HUB4 like there is on Hub5. In modem mode to your own router that has 2.5gbs ports or greater then maybe onto a further switch woth 2.5gbps ports or greater, you can utilise the over provisioned gig service to get 1140 to 1200mbps to a device rather than getting a max of 930mbps ish on hub4.
It’s true a large number of customers won’t have 2.5gbps or greater ports on their own router/switch but some like me, do.
Trying to bond multiple lam ports on the hub4 was broken by VM and you needed originally to use additional kit like microtek.
Anon, it’s not just Mikrotik. To get the full 1150 you just need a device capable of balance-rr (round robin). Linux can do this very easily, as can devices based on linux/freebsd etc. I only have the 350mbit VM so I can’t test it but I know people who’ve setup balance-rr in linux to do it, and all you need is a dual port NIC. Of course this is a crutch. The HUB4 is kinda pants to be honest. But not everyone needs those speeds and not everyone is capable of setting it up so many just live with what they’ve got.
As I clearly stated the HUB 4 is more than capable of supporting Gig1.
How that’s distributed to your home devices is up to you. One device wired = 940Mbps plus one other device, wireless or wired, and you’ve already saturated 1130 (Ish) Mbps.
Replying to sebbb.
I was comparing the difference in the WiFi speeds I managed with the Hub 4 and Hub 5 using the same laptop. And I wasn’t doing a technical speed test anyway. Also why would I do a speed test using ethernet when I always use WiFi?
Because WiFi isn’t consistent.
Only wired speeds are guaranteed (WiFi can be guaranteed at a minimum of 20Mbps with VM).
Carl twaddle again by generic statements.
Wifi can be perfectly OK and stable. It depends if you are in an area with interference like multiple access points on same or near channels. You may live rural or in a farm field away from others. You may also be with acceptable space to the router without thick walls or metal blocking signals.
I have rock solid 4k streaming for hours on WiFi in my house and upstairs without further mesh or extenders.
Just stating the facts, and what VM officially support.
Too many users who don’t understand the tech believing they’ll see full speed to wireless devices regardless!
Community fibre is also expanding into Southall. I recently switched over from Virgin media, and so far the experience has been better. I’m paying way less for more bandwidth (1gbps) and better pings (3ms to Google) and a far better router.