Virgin Media Bring 1Gbps Broadband to 6,400 Homes in East Grinstead
UK ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2) has confirmed that they’ve just completed the expansion of their gigabit-capable broadband network – via Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / RFoG) technology – to cover 6,400 homes in the West Sussex (England) town of East Grinstead.
Eagle-eyed readers may recall that we first spotted Virgin Media expanding their coverage in the town, which is home to around 27,000 people, all the way back in early 2020 as part of their wider Project Lightning deployment (here). At the time, the operator was expecting to cover 3,000 premises by the end of 2020.
Virgin technically completed its Project Lightning build at the end of 2022 (adding over 3 million homes to their coverage), and their overall UK network coverage now reaches a total of 16 million premises. 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.
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However, aside from upgrading that HFC to FTTP (XGS-PON) by 2028 (Project Mustang), the operator’s parent also plans to deploy full fibre broadband to an additional 5-7 million UK premises – via a new Joint Venture called Nexfibre – 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.
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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Still can’t get the logic standing behind building FTTP network only to downgrade it to docsis on last two meters and then to make it proper FTTP back again within up to next 4 years. Yeah, I heard that they want keep device compatibility but again, according to their customer reports they are short on hub5 and supply hub4 instead xD
It is to maintain compatibility with end user devices and sell a unified product offering across the country. You have to remember that they sell TV and telephony as well as internet services, so that has to work everywhere. The easiest way of achieving this (without deploying pockets of new technology) is to give everyone the same thing.
Once the RFoG deployment has reached a certain scale, I suspect they will begin the mass XGS-PON offering, at which point will we see new product offerings and different end user hardware. It is worth noting that Virgin are doing all the legwork to enable them to make this switch easy. I’ve been a Virgin RFoG customer and whilst i’m no longer with them, I think their roll out strategy makes a lot of sense.
There is no “downgrade it to docsis on last two meters”, it’s DOCSIS all the way from the VHUB for the current FTTP network which works using RFoG. In time this network will be migrated to XGS-PON.
Yes, Roger is correct. The physical transport layer is the biggest change between RFoG and Coax, which I believe is what you’re referring to as DOCSIS.
@Matt: “Once the RFoG deployment has reached a certain scale, I suspect they will begin the mass XGS-PON offering, at which point will we see new product offerings and different end user hardware.”
I do not believe that VM is investing any more into RFoG infrastructure, and the spending is now targeted at HFC to XGS-PON upgrade (Project Mustang) and new XGS-PON. In future RFoG will have to be upgraded to XGS-PON but that’s a much smaller project than Mustang.
What I think will happen is that once some areas have been made capable of running XGS-PON (which does not mean ripping out coaxial cables in those areas, BTW), then VM will offer some higher speeds, e.g. 1.5Gbps download and 300Mbps upload. A tech will have to install the ONT and plug in a router (provided by either VM or the customer). There will still be a coaxial cable for the STB as RF is needed until DVB-C is replaced by video over IP.
‘I do not believe that VM is investing any more into RFoG infrastructure’
You’re literally posting this comment to an article on a 6,400 premises RFoG build.
Mustang is a separate project from Lightning. Both continue in parallel. VMO2 will stop and new build will be Nexfibre XGSPON but not there yet.
No new tiers by default when XGSPON goes live. The next new one will be 2 Gbit/s symmetrical on XGSPON, with extra fluff to put it at 2.2-2.4, probably 100 up on HFC. This is in response to the Openreach 1.8 Gbit product.
Words of truth 🙂
East Grinstead residents have up to 4 FTTP providers now! (Openreach, Virgin, F&Wnand Swish Fibre)