Virgin Media Nationwide

[paul11974]

Virgin Media could expand outside its cabled area as early as next month.

The company plans to market a quad-play offering comprising broadband internet, TV, fixed-line phone and mobile phone outside its cable addressable area beginning in April.

The television component will be powered by a Virgin-branded digital terrestrial set top box. The channels available on Freeview are broadly comparable, with some absences, to those available in the free TV pack ("size M") offered to Virgin's cable phone line subscribers.

By next year, Virgin plans to have secured network capacity from a local-loop unbundled telephony operator to offer more linear and on demand TV content on a service almost comparable to that available in cabled areas.

[Chris Norris]

So they will be charging for a Freeview box? I hope it will be a PVR!

Actually, I'm moving to a new flat outside the cable network in a couple of months. I'm considering Vodafone At Home at the moment, but I only have six months left on my Vodafone contract and it would be tempting to take an offnet Virgin Media bundle if I could add the £10/month Virgin Mobile tariff at a later date.

Perhaps they could do a 3 for £30 of wholesale BT line rental, 2meg Virgin.net broadband and a Freeview box.

Chris