Posted: 01st Dec, 2010 By: MarkJ

Cable operator Virgin Media has announced new plans to "
extend" its Cable Modem (
DOCSIS/
EuroDOCSIS 3.0) based broadband, phone and TV platform by teaming up with one of the country's biggest builders of new homes -
Persimmon Homes. Persimmon designs and builds around
10,000 new homes across the UK each year.
However, according to Virgin Media, only selected Persimmon new build homes "
in cabled areas" will start to be constructed with
built-in access to their service. In other words, the general coverage of Virgin's underlying cable platform won't actually be extended at all.
On the bright side Virgin's move will make it a lot easier for new home buyers to get connected. Sadly customers moving in to
non-cabled areas will only have the option of the
Virgin National (Virgin.net ADSL) service, which uses an
old copper line platform that the operator frequently denigrates for its poor performance.
Steve Carlin, Virgin Media’s director of sales for new build, said:
"Virgin Media’s partnership with Persimmon Homes can take a little bit of the stress out of setting up home as well as allow more people to enjoy our next-generation services as soon as they move in. We all want to be able to watch, share and access our entertainment at home and Virgin Media’s services really help customers to make the most of their technology."
It's worth pointing out that Virgin Media is also "
part-way through a significant cable expansion programme", which aims to bring their service(s) to a further
500,000 households that have previously been unreachable.
Virgin Media are already running
Berkshire (Wales) trials that use
telegraph poles to deliver super-fast 50Mbps broadband services via new fibre optic cables. Furthermore Virgin believes it has identified more than
1 Million homes across parts of the UK that could potentially benefit from fibre optic deployment via telegraph poles.