Virgin Media and Nexfibre’s FTTP Reaches 25,000 Extra Lowestoft Homes

Network operator nexfibre has today confirmed that they’ve expanded their 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network, alongside partner UK ISP Virgin Media (VMO2), to cover an additional 25,000 premises in the seaside town of Lowestoft in Suffolk (England).

The development marks a significant change in the town from what we saw in 2020, when there was hardly any gigabit-capable broadband coverage in Lowestof. But since then we’ve seen a big expansion of full fibre coverage by nexfibre, as well as rivals Openreach (BT) and CityFibre. OFNL also has a small patch in the odd new build homes site.

Nexfibre has already covered 1 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network, and they’re currently in the process of investing a further £1bn during 2024, which should enable them to cover an additional 1 million UK premises on top of that. Both Virgin Media and nexfibre share some of the same parentage in Telefónica and Liberty Global, while nexfibre also harnesses Virgin’s existing build engine to aid their roll-out.

Just for some context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners originally set up the new £4.5bn nexfibre joint venture in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT currently served by Virgin Media’s separate network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.

The result of all this is that both nexfibre and VMO2 combined should cover up to 23 million premises, or around 80% of the UK, by around the end of 2028.