{"id":45392,"date":"2026-04-07T17:29:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:29:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=45392"},"modified":"2026-04-07T17:29:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T16:29:12","slug":"nexfibre-confirm-fttp-broadband-upgrades-for-7-further-uk-locations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/04\/nexfibre-confirm-fttp-broadband-upgrades-for-7-further-uk-locations.html","title":{"rendered":"Nexfibre Confirm FTTP Broadband Upgrades for 7 Further UK Locations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Network operator nexfibre<\/a>, which shares some of its parentage with Virgin Media<\/a> (harnessing the same build teams) and giffgaff<\/a>, has today followed up the recent announcements for Crawley and Bradford (here<\/a>) by announcing a further seven UK locations – reflecting a total of 226,000 premises at a cost of \u00a331.7m – that will benefit from an upgrade to their latest full fibre (FTTP<\/a> \/ XGS-PON) broadband technology.<\/p>\n

Just to recap. Back in 2022 Telef\u00f3nica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners setup nexfibre<\/a> as a new \u00a34.5bn joint venture (here<\/a>), which aimed to deploy an open access wholesale FTTP<\/a> network to reach \u201cup to<\/em>\u201d 7m UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT served by Virgin Media<\/a>\u2019s own network of 16m+ premises. Virgin also had a separate plan (Fibre Up\/Project Mustang) to upgrade their old Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC) network to FTTP<\/a>.<\/p>\n

NOTE:<\/strong> Virgin Media<\/a> and giffgaff<\/a> are currently the only major retail players on nexfibre<\/a>\u2019s open access XGS-PON FTTP network, which all share some of the same parentage.<\/div>\n

However, nexfibre\u2019s rollout plan suffered a blow last year after Telefonica launched a Strategic Review<\/strong> of their global business (here<\/a> and here<\/a>), which resulted in nexfibre scaling back their planned FTTP build. In practical terms this meant there wasn’t a clear build plan for going beyond the current level of coverage (2.6m premises passed<\/a>).<\/p>\n

The situation recently changed again after Telef\u00f3nica, Liberty Global and InfraVia reached a \u00a32bn deal to acquire rival network Netomnia<\/a> (here<\/a>), which is still awaiting final regulatory approval. But as part of that deal nexfibre announced a plan to finance the FTTP upgrade of 2.1 million VMO2 HFC homes (i.e. those that are \u201cadjacent<\/em>\u201d to the Netomnia<\/a> footprint), with VMO2 paying wholesale fibre access fees on its customers in those homes as the fibre becomes available (with the \u201cmajority expected to be ready by the end of 2027<\/em>\u201c).<\/p>\n

The recent upgrade announcements in Crawley and Bradford were the first locations to benefit from this and today a further seven have been confirmed. Just to be clear, these are places that can often already access gigabit-capable broadband via Virgin Media’s old HFC network, but which will now be getting FTTP via the wholesale platform established under nexfibre.<\/p>\n

The Latest 7 Nexfibre HFC to FTTP Upgrade Areas<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n