General : FTTP Rollout

[Jaymoss]

Loads of vans on my estate this week so I approached one on the way to the gym today. Asked what was being laid and he told me it was Virgin Media Fibre to the router for future release. Not seen any news on this but not really been taking much notice but interesting

[nodrogd]

All part of this:

https://www.libertyglobal.com/virgin...-upgrade-plan/

VM are retrofitting all existing cabled areas with full fibre. This will not carry traditional cable TV services, but will carry symmetrical Broadband at higher speeds. It's likely 2Gb download speeds will be the first to be pushed on these upgrades, with customers on lower tiers being gradually being migrated.

Well, as it stands, I'm almost certainly dumping VM BB in January.
However, if they retrofit my area, and provide symmetrical broadband, I may have to look again, after thats happened.

[tidder23]

went with brsk couple weeks ago full fibre £30 + £5 for a ipv4 address
been excellent so far

[jfman]

Unrelated to Virgin, the first FTTP hitting my area is from the relative minnows Netomnia, the retail ISP being Youfibre. They’ll offer you symmetrical 8 gig for the princely sum of 100 pounds per month. They’re clearing Openreach ducts and stringing their poles imminently. I’ve heard horror stories of it being 2 to 3 years before it becomes available.

Virgin will overlay their HFC with FTTP at an unknown point.

Openreach are saying 2026.

My 5G from Three at £3 per month will do. Anything from 200 to 500 meg depending on who is hanging around and an RT-AC86U will serve me well to 2026.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Jaymoss

Loads of vans on my estate this week so I approached one on the way to the gym today. Asked what was being laid and he told me it was Virgin Media Fibre to the router for future release. Not seen any news on this but not really been taking much notice but interesting

Virgin are overlaying their HFC with Full Fibre FTTP (incidentally exclusively announced on here by Me several years ago) with XGSPON technology- symmetrical 10G.

They’ll keep the HFC running in parallel for many years.

VM Network Expansion is now done for the NexFibre JV, where VM are paid to design, engineer, build and maintain a full fibre network for a company call NexFibre. VM provide their services over this open access network. They are an anchor tenant, but other companies can use the network, I believe GiffGaff are considering it. It’s the same as Vodafone using the CityFibre network.

Going back to the HFC FTTP overbuild, VM are doing the same thing “on net” as they are with NexFibre by forming a “NetCo”, in which they’ll spin off their network into a separate vehicle allowing others to use their network.

[Jaymoss]

Nice info thanks

Competition is good for sure

[Skie]

Hopefully it means cheaper prices rather than just more inflated prices from the larger networks.

EE have just leafleted my area advertising a whopping 149/30 for £30 a month, going up by £3 a month in March. Youfibre cover this area and provide 1gb/1gb for £28 a month with zero price rises in-contract.