Virgin Media UK and Nexfibre Add 18k Homes to Horsham UK Fibre Network

Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of their parentage with broadband ISP partner Virgin Media (O2), has announced that they’ve extended their 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) network to cover 18,000 additional homes in the West Sussex (England) town of Horsham.

The town itself is now well covered by both Virgin Media and nexfibre’s combined gigabit broadband networks, although it’s worth noting that Horsham is also home to several other full fibre networks with strong coverage, such as Openreach, F&W Networks and CityFibre. In addition, a few areas are also reached by smaller networks from Hyperoptic and OFNL etc.

Nexfibre itself has already covered around 1.6 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network, and they’re currently in the process of investing another £1bn this year, which should enable them to cover an additional 1 million UK premises by the end of 2024 (reaching a total footprint of c.2m).

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 network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.