Virgin Media UK expand trial availability of 2Gbps broadband on coax network
Back in July we revealed that broadband ISP Virgin Media were running a small trial that had made their top 2Gbps (200Mbps upload) speed package available over their older Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC / DOCSIS 3.1) network, albeit only in a few UK locations (e.g. parts of Oldham). Previously you could only access 1Gbps speeds in such areas. The good news is this seems to be expanding.
At present anybody who wants 2Gbps speeds (including symmetric) on Virgin Media needs to be covered by their live XGS-PON based FTTP network (mostly via nexfibre). A total of 9 million Virgin Media and nexfibre premises (footprint) are now covered by these full fibre lines – using both XGS-PON and RFOG technology.
However, several million of Virgin’s existing lines are still being delivered over HFC technology, which makes any speed boost on that side particularly important. Since the original article we’ve been receiving a steady trickle of messages from Virgin Media customers in different HFC-only areas who are now finding that the 2Gbps package shows up for them too (parts of Leicestershire, Hampshire and more of Greater Manchester etc.).
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The coverage of this is still quite sporadic, but seems to be increasing at a reasonable pace. The expansion appears, anecdotally at least, to be indicative of a possibly c.12 month roll-out programme that’s in the ramp-up phase. ISPreview queried this again with the provider, but a spokesperson merely confirmed that “our trial is continuing” and didn’t yet have anything further to announce.
In the meantime, any customers in HFC-only areas who have an interest in the 2Gbps tier would do well to conduct occasional checks of their ordering system. The expectation is that Virgin Media won’t announce the expanded availability, officially speaking, until the deployment has reached a much wider or completed level of coverage. Naturally if you want symmetric 2Gbps speeds then the only way to get that is via their XGS-PON FTTP network.
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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