British cableco Virgin Media has reportedly reached the halfway mark in a project announced last year, under which it will extend its network to around 100,000 premises in East London. According to TechWeek Europe, around 50,000 homes and business in the areas including East Ham, Poplar, Bow, Stepney and Stratford are now able to access the operator’s hybrid fibre-coaxial (HFC) network, which offers downlink speeds of up to 152Mbps.
As previously reported by CommsUpdate, in August 2014 Virgin Media said it would extend its network to premises in East London in what it called its ‘largest single network expansion project to date’. More recently, however, a more significant investment programme was unveiled, with the cableco last month announcing ‘Project Lightning’, under which it will undertake what it has claimed will be ‘the single largest investment in broadband digital infrastructure in the country for more than a decade’. As per its plans, Virgin Media will spend around GBP3 billion (USD4.59 billion) as it works to extend its HFC network to around four million additional premises over the next five years, with the support of parent company Liberty Global.
