Virgin Media Has 4.6m Broadband Users As Expansion Continues

Virgin Media now has 4.6 million broadband customers in the UK, with 43 percent receiving more than 100Mbps as the company continues to boost speeds and expand its cable network.

The Liberty Global-owned firm added 42,000 customers in UK during the third quarter of 2015 – a record since Virgin Media was formed by the merger of NTL and Telewest in 2007.

The gains have been attributed to marketing and reduced customer churn, with the firm allowing customers to ‘opt in’ to receive higher speeds. Virgin Media has also boosted its highest consumer speed to 200Mbps and its fastest business connections will soon be 300Mbps.

Virgin Media broadband

Virgin expects 200Mbps to be available to 90 percent of its customers as it continues the £3bn Project Lightning network expansion. Currently, the network reaches 12.75 million premises and it is intended to connect 17 million properties. So fart, 126,000 homes and businesses have been added as a result of the project in Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham, and this should rise to 252,000 by the end of the year.

Cable revenues rose from £793m to £810m but mobile revenues dropped from £122.6 million to £118m despite 56,000 new mobile subscribers. Business revenues were £162m, up from £155m.

As the UK’s first ‘triple-play’ and ‘quad-play’ provider, it’s not surprising that a significant proportion of customers take multiple services from the firm. Indeed, a third take three services and 17.2 percent take four.

Virgin Media has been a vocal opponent of further regulation in the superfast broadband market. It opposes moves to separate Openreach from BT and says it would not welcome any intervention that mighty impede its expansion plans. Virgin has also warned Ofcom that providing rivals with greater access to the firm’s business broadband network would damage the UK market.

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