Telecompaper

Virgin Media will soon begin a trial to deliver 50 Mbps broadband to the Berkshire village of Woolhampton using telegraph poles. The trial is expected to effectively increase broadband speeds by more than ten-fold by connecting homes directly to Virgin Media's network. The rural community previously relied on BT's copper network. Villagers will also be offered Virgin Media's TV service. The trial will start this month and is scheduled to run for around six months. A Virgin Media spokesperson told Telecompaper that the cable operator will use fibre-to-the-premise technology, to bring the fibre line directly to the residence. The test is part of Virgin Media's plans to bring next-generation digital services to people who currently live beyond the reach of fibre-optic networks. Virgin Media has already announced plans to extend its HFC network, which now passes 12.6 million homes, to 500,000 new homes and has identified more than one million homes in parts of the UK that stand to benefit from deployment over telegraph poles. Virgin said that initial analysis suggests that 'non-traditional' approaches of this kind could deliver next-generation broadband to over one million homes up and down the UK without the need for government subsidy.