7,000 Extra Skipton and Glusburn Premises Get Virgin Media O2’s Full Fibre

Broadband ISP Virgin Media UK (VMO2) and network operator nexfibre have confirmed that an additional 7,000 homes and businesses in the North Yorkshire (England) town of Skipton and village of Glusburn have now been reached by their new 10Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) network.

Just to recap. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners created a new joint venture called nexfibre in 2022 (here) – backed by £4.5bn – that aims to deploy an open access full fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes in areas NOT currently served by Virgin Media’s own network – starting with 5 million by 2026. But Virgin Media, which shares some of the same parents, is currently the only ISP on this network (here).

Julie Agnew, VMO2’s MD of Fixed Network Expansion, said: “7,000 more people in Skipton and Glusburn can now feel the benefit of Virgin Media’s services – with packages that include everything from next generation gigabit broadband to easy-to-use TV streaming and entertainment services.”

The VMO2 press announcement on this is actually quite confusing, as it chops and changes between conflicting statements. For example, there’s the reference to “7,000 more people” above, then elsewhere they say “more than 7,000 homes and businesses” (premises and people are not the same measure) and in one sentence they also confuse all of this by saying “more than 24,000 additional homes and businesses” – all for both locations. We’ve gone with 7,000 premises as it’s the most repeated one.