Virgin Media Cashes In On BT Fibre

Virgin Media is planning to use BT’s fibre infrastructure to expand its high-speed network coverage to as many as 16 million homes in the UK. The news follows Ofcom’s announcement yesterday that BT will be forced to share its fibre optic network with rival ISPs.

Virgin’s super-fast broadband network currently serves around 12.7 million homes – for the most part in towns and cities. The operator said it plans to run the network past another 400,000 homes by the end of 2012.

Virgin has also proposed delivering broadband over telegraph poles as a way to tackle the problem of poor Internet access in rural communities. The company trialled the idea in the Berkshire village of Woolhampton earlier this year, claiming that broadband speeds increased more than ten-fold in homes connected to the fibre network.

“This is an important step that rightly focuses on opening up areas of the country not already served by super-fast broadband, removing one of the hurdles that make such developments near impossible at present,” a Virgin Media spokesperson said, speaking to the Financial Times.

ISP TalkTalk is also planning to purchase a fibre service from BT, and is currently conducting trials to see what the offering could do for its customers.

BT to share fibre

On 7 October, Ofcom released its final regulatory statement for next-generation access networks in the UK, stating that competing ISPs such as TalkTalk and BSkyB must be able to use BT infrastructure – including underground ducts and poles as well as its fibre-optic network – to channel high-speed broadband to customers.

Ofcom’s chief executive, Ed Richards, said that the new regulatory framework would “promote investment, competition and innovation to enable as many consumers as possible to benefit from these exciting new services”.

The call from Ofcom comes despite the fact that BT has been making its ducting available to competitors since February of this year. BT also already allows competitors access to its fibre network.

“This statement is reassuring in that Ofcom agrees that we have been providing suitable unbundled access to our fibre for some months now,” a BT spokesman told eWEEK Europe yesterday. “That recognition, combined with us having pricing freedom for that product, provides much of the regulatory clarity and certainty that we have been seeking.”

Increasing fibre access

According to BT, more than 2 million homes and businesses in the UK now have access to fibre broadband. The company claims it is on track to deliver access to 4 million premises by the end of this year, making it “one of the fastest and most ambitious deployment plans in the world”.

On 4 October, BT launched a competition designed to assess the demand for fibre optic broadband in different areas of the country by gathering votes from potential subscribers. Known as the “Race to Infinity,” the five exchanges that show the greatest demand will be provided with fibre broadband by early 2012.

However, an email from the company, mistakenly sent to entrants yesterday, revealed that the current top five communities in the race are Bermondsey, Bishopsgate, Canonbury, Clerkenwell and Covent Garden – all in central London – according to the Register.

“What a shock London tops the rankings for the BT race to infinity. :-/ Roll it out somewhere it’ll impact, like Shropshire!” wrote one outraged Tweeter.

However, a BT spokesperson confirmed that the email was a test, and the exchanges listed in the email are not leading the race.