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Virgin Media to double the speed of customer broadband

Hot on the heel;s of BT, Virgin Media is set to double the speeds of over four million of its broadband customers.

Announcing the news via the Virgin Media website, Virgin states that a mass roll-out of the next generation broadband will begin in earnest in February 2012 and Virgin Media will be boosting its top speed to 120Mb.

Prime Minister David Cameron is among the first to praise this ambitious initiative, which marks a step change in the UK’s digital development and will strengthen Virgin Media’s position as the fastest broadband provider in the UK.

The upgrade programme will continue over 18 months and is expected to be complete by mid 2013. Subscribers to Virgin Media’s current 10Mb, 20Mb, 30Mb and 50Mb services will see their speeds at least doubled, with 100Mb customers seeing a significant increase to 120Mb.

Virgin Media chief executive officer, Neil Berkett, said: “The burgeoning market for better connectivity has given us an opportunity to transform the digital experience of millions of our customers and to bring about a massive step change in the number of UK consumers who have access to exciting, next generation services.

“Virgin Media has a track record of leading Britain’s digital development and this major initiative will meet the growing demand for faster broadband as well as provide significantly more value to our customers.”

David Cameron commented: “I welcome this announcement from Virgin Media; it will provide a great boost for the economy and change the way many households, consumers and businesses use the internet.

“Rolling out superfast broadband across the country is a critical part of our plan to upgrade the UK’s infrastructure and build a new and smarter economy."

Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport, Jeremy Hunt, added: “Faster broadband speeds are great for customers and great for business, which is why our policy is to deliver superfast broadband to 90% of the country by 2015.

BT adds 178 exchanges to superfast fibre optic network

   FIBRE IS FAST

BT announced in late December 2011, that a further 178 local exchanges in the UK, were being added to what is already an ambitious programme of expansion of the fibre network. 

The latest tranche of exchanges that will get superfast broadband as part of its £2.5bn fibre upgrade programme to bring faster broadband speeds to two-thirds of UK premises by 2014.

BT is currently rolling out fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) broadband to the majority of exchanges in its upgrade programme – a technology which currently supports broadband download speeds of up to 40Mbps but which BT says will be capable of supporting up to 80Mbps next year, and possibly more than 100Mbps in future.

The 178 exchanges include 17 locations in Cornwall that will be upgraded as part of a European Union-backed up to 100Mbps rollout announced last year.
 

Megger strengthens support to Total Comms Training

Megger has strengthened it's committment by supporting Total Comms Training during 2012 and beyond

Councils in England get deadline for super fast broadband

Local auhorities and other councils in England wanting to roll out high-speed internet links have been given only until February 2012 to apply for government cash.

£530m has been allocated by the UK Government to "empower" the so called  "superfast" broadband to the UK's countryside by the end of 2015.

Utilising fibre optic links some campaigners have questioned the very short deadline date that the Government have imposed. The stated aims of the plan is essentially to get well over 90% of homes and businesses to have access to "superfast" broadband by 2015

The government scheme has been devised to encourage telecoms companies to install fibre and hence broadband, in areas that some telecoms operators say are simply uneconomic to be offered.

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has defined "superfast" broadband as speeds greater than 24Mbps.

BT speeds up its superfast broadband rollout: Britain to get fibre by 2014

Two-thirds of UK to have fibre broadband by 2014, a year earlier than planned...

BT is significantly speeding up its deployment of its fibre upgrade programme one year ahead of schedule.

In this announcement, BT says that superfast broadband access via fibre will enable up to 66 per cent of the UK to access the new services by 2014, which is one year earlier than planned.

The initial plan to invest in next-generation broadband was made back in 2008. However, last year, the planned investment was massively increased to £2.5bn.

"Our rollout of fibre broadband is one of the fastest in the world and so it is great to be ahead of what was an already challenging schedule," said Ian Livingston, CEO of BT Group, in a statement. "The acceleration reflects the success of the programme to date and is testament to the hard work and innovation of our people."

To achieve its accelerated deployment, BT said it will bring forward about £300m of investment and be recruiting an additional 520 engineers, some of whom will be ex-armed forces personnel. This follows an earlier recruitment drive this year to hire some 200 former armed forces staff to help with its next-gen broadband rollout. However, there are many opportunities for experienced fibre optic cabling installers, and BT has asked that anyone that wants to be involved in this work, to contact the relevant HR Departments within BT.