Has anyone had any luck lobbying to get Virgin Fibre in their area?

[yashi43]

My street has basic openreach broadband up to 36 mbps and no other options whatsoever. Meanwhile, the adjoining street, 400 yds away has Virgin Fibre. It’s really frustrating, so much so that I contacted their MD of network development on LinkedIn to try to get an idea of there are any plans to expand to my street. He basically said no, not at the current time.

Does anyone know if it’s just a post code lottery or if there are genuine infrastructure limitations that could stop them expanding to a street next to an area they already cover? Has anyone had any success in badgering them to expand to their area?

[nodrogd]

There is no obligation on VMs part to service all properties as there is Openreach. They can in some areas use Openreach ducting, but it requires their own full fibre infrastructure to be nearby. Most of VMs infrastructure is HFC, so what is running in the ducts is copper coaxial, not fibre. This is not suitable for Openreach distribution due to the larger diameter cable used.

Several other things will stop VM expansion to your street.

1) Private unadopted roads. Expansion would require individual wayleave agreements with every landlord, whether they are taking the service or not. A hugely expensive exercise for which most projects would go well over budget.

2) Block paved roads or no footways. Again hugely expensive having to dig everything in the road.

3) New build embargo’s. These can last up to 10 years, & prevent Virgin or any other providers digging up the nice new tarmac.

4) Build capacity. HFC networks have a finite number of connections that can be added before a major infrastructure overhaul is required to add more connections. The easiest way to overcome this is fibre overbuild, but as mentioned in the first paragraph above it may mean digging streets further away from you to get the required duct alterations.

Best of luck. Many have tried & failed.

[jpeg1]

Check on the Openreach website to see when they will be installing fibre to the premises in your area.