Virgin Media gives Leicestershire homes an ultrafast broadband boost

• 16,000 homes in the county will benefit from an ultrafast optical fibre broadband connection delivered direct to the home

• Residents in the villages of Blaby, Countesthorpe and Enderby will be the first to benefit from broadband speeds of up to 200Mbps
• Innovative use of narrow-trenching means fibre cables are laid twice as fast as current methods

Virgin Media has today announced six Leicestershire villages are next-in-line to receive ultrafast broadband speeds of 200Mbps, as part of its £3bn Project Lightning network expansion plan across the UK.

A total of 16,000 homes in the county are currently being prepared to benefit from an ultrafast optical fibre broadband connection delivered direct to the home, more than two and a half times faster than the top speeds available from BT, TalkTalk and Sky. Virgin Media’s Vivid 200Mbps broadband is the best way to experience the internet – meaning that a whole household can stream movies, music and more all at the same time.

Residents in Blaby, Countesthorpe and Enderby will be the first to benefit from the broadband speed boost, with some homes going live before Christmas. Residents in Whetstone, Narborough and Cosby will be connected in early 2016.

Tom Mockridge, CEO of Virgin Media said: “Expanding our network to villages such as Blaby and Enderby shows that Project Lightning is not just about building in big cities, we’re also investing to bring ultrafast broadband to towns and villages close to our existing network across the UK.”

The broadband expansion in Leicestershire was made possible by using an innovative way of bringing ultrafast broadband to people’s homes with minimal disruption. The approach, called narrow-trenching, reduces the width of the trench used to lay optical fibre cables from around 40cm to just 10cm and enables engineers to cover up to 100m in a day, making it more than twice as fast as current methods. The residents will receive the very latest broadband technology with fibre delivered direct to the home.

Tom Mockridge continued: “The innovative use of narrow-trenching means that we’ll be laying fibre optic cable all the way to customers’ doorsteps, future-proofing their homes for tomorrow’s connectivity and rolling out network more quickly. We hope that we can count on government and local authority support to use this technique in more parts of the UK.”

Virgin Media’s optical fibre broadband also uses a unique technology called DOCSIS® 3. The use of this technology together with fibre cable connected directly to the customer’s property means it can deliver faster, more reliable broadband to the home.

The broadband boost for Leicestershire comes nine months after Virgin Media’s pledge to increase connectivity across the country, expanding its optical fibre network to 4 million more homes over the next five years. The 16,000 Leicestershire homes join the 250,000 premises already ear-marked to benefit from ultrafast broadband speeds, to date.

Local residents can find out more details about when their homes will be connected by visitingvirginmedia.com/cablemystreet or the Virgin Media store on Gallowtree Gate in Leicester city centre.

Virgin Media offers four multi award-winning services across the UK and Ireland: broadband, TV, mobile phone and landline.

The company’s dedicated, ultrafast network delivers the fastest widely available broadband speeds to homes and businesses. And we’re expanding this through our £3bn Project Lightning programme, which will reach 17 million premises.

Our interactive TV service brings live programmes, thousands of hours of on-demand programming and the best apps and games in a set-top box, as well as on-the-go for tablets and smartphones.

We launched the world’s first virtual mobile network, offering fantastic value and services to customers. We are also one of the largest fixed-line home phone providers in the UK and Ireland.

Through Virgin Media Business we support entrepreneurs, businesses and the public sector, delivering the fastest widely available broadband speeds and tailor-made services.

Virgin Media is part of Liberty Global, the world’s largest international cable company. Together Virgin Media and Liberty Global serve 27 million customers across 14 countries.