Virgin Media today announced that homes and businesses in Lancashire will be next to benefit from an ultrafast broadband and entertainment boost.
As part of its Project Lightning expansion, Virgin Media plans to extend its fibre optic network to up to 53,000 homes and businesses across Lancashire. This has the potential to transform the quality of broadband in a county where the average download speed is just 19Mbps.
Those who wish to take Virgin Media’s internet services will be connected to ultrafast broadband, reaching speeds of up to 300Mbps for residents and 350Mbps for small businesses. This means that residents will be able to benefit from broadband that’s 16 times faster than average speeds in Lancashire.
Work has already begun in Morecambe to connect up to 14,000 new premises and is expected to be completed across the county before the end of 2018.
Residents can also benefit from the latest entertainment with the brand new smallest, smartest, fastest, 4k-ready Virgin TV V6 set-top box, with the ability to stream live TV, recordings, on demand shows and movies around the home. Plus, there is lots of great programming with up to 245 TV channels (including 50 HD channels) with Sky Sports, Sky Movies, BT Sport and Netflix, as well as an extensive TV on demand library of TV box sets and movies. As well as access to brand new TV shows such as Ash vs Evil Dead, Kingdom, Magic City, Billy & Billie, Full Circle and Imposters – exclusive to Virgin Media TV customers.
Residents can also benefit from Virgin Mobile’s recently revamped services – bringing fast 4G connectivity, free Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger, as well as the ability to rollover unused data each month.
Paul Hutchinson, Regional Director for the North West at Virgin Media, said:
> We’re delighted to be expanding our network to tens of thousands more homes and businesses to help to make Lancashire a world class digital hotspot. Local residents and businesses will soon be getting the high-speed connectivity they deserve. We urge more people to come together and register their interest – your street could be next.
Councillor Roger Mace, Mayor of Lancaster said:
> The pending arrival of ultrafast broadband is another real boost for residents and businesses in Morecambe, coming soon after the boost to physical connectivity for the Heysham and Morecambe peninsula from the recent opening of the Bay Gateway, linking the area to Junction 34 of the M6.
Backed by parent company Liberty Global, Virgin Media is investing £3bn to extend its ultrafast fibre broadband network to an additional 4 million premises, to reach a total of 17 million homes and businesses.
Ends
The average (median) broadband speed in Lancashire County Council is 19Mbps. Source: Ofcom, Connected Nations Report 2016, published February 2017.
Ultrafast broadband up to 300Mbps
For residents, Virgin Media’s Vivid 300 broadband offers the fastest widely available broadband – with download speeds of up to 300Mbps. This is four times faster than Virgin Media’s main competitors’ top speeds and gives households more bandwidth to stream, game, chat and work all at the same time on multiple connected devices.
For small businesses, Virgin Media Business now offers ultrafast connectivity, with speeds of up to 350Mbps as standard – almost four times faster than its main competitors’ widely available top speeds. This enables businesses to reach their potential by delivering better services and greater capacity.
Virgin TV V6 box, powered by TiVo
The new Virgin TV V6 box is Virgin Media’s smallest, smartest and fastest box yet. It is half the size of the previous TiVo box with 10x the power and packed with a load of extra features. It allows people to record six programmes while watching a seventh recording or stream from services such as iPlayer or Netflix. The Virgin TV V6 box is designed so that recordings can be accessed and streamed on other TiVo boxes around the home and support 4K Ultra-High Definition (UHD) TV with Netflix and YouTube available in 4K from launch and more programming coming soon.
Fast 4G mobile connectivity
Virgin Mobile was the world’s first virtual mobile operator when it launched in 1999. It is one of the largest MVNOs in the UK with 3 million subscribers. Instead of owning mobile infrastructure, Virgin Mobile uses infrastructure provided on a wholesale basis by network operator EE. In November 2016 Virgin Mobile launched 4G in the UK, combined with innovative new services that give customers free messaging on WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger and the ability to “rollover” unused data.
For more product information, visit www.virginmedia.com
Press contacts
Verity Henderson, Virgin Media
0333 000 2900, press@virginmedia.co.uk, @VirginMediaCorp
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