Residents in a Cambridgeshire village are to enjoy superfast broadband with speeds of 1 Gbps as part of a Virgin Media-backed trial.
It’s been made possible by a trial that could reduce the cost of broadband by 33%. Such a move would be welcomed in parts of rural Britain that have lagged behind in the upgrades enjoyed by their city counterparts.
The approach, called narrow-trenching, reduces the width of the trench used to lay 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.
100 households in Papworth will be able to sign up for a supercharged 1Gbps trial service. Hundreds more households across Papworth will be able to enjoy 152Mbps broadband from Virgin Media, the UK’s fastest widely available broadband.
Paul Buttery, Virgin Media’s Chief Customer, Networks and Technology Officer, said: “Virgin Media continues to push the boundaries of broadband, launching the UK’s first superfast service in 2008 and boosting Virgin Media homes yet again with 152Mb broadband launched this year. We know our network is unbeatable and we are excited to bring 1Gbps to the people of Papworth as they help us explore a new way of rolling out our network faster and more cost-effectively.”
Virgin Media recently announced plans to expand its network to another 100,000 homes in east London. A further 45,000 homes in western Scotland and north west England are benefitting from the UK’s fastest widely available broadband and the most advanced TV entertainment service following Virgin Media’s acquisition of Smallworld Fibre earlier this year.
Virgin Media has partnered with John Henry Group to trial the narrow-trenching in Papworth.
