Virgin Media is testing the use of wireless signals to deliver fibre broadband and TV services to homes in the village of Greenham, near the UK town of Newbury. Virgin expects to start further trials of this technology later in 2019.
Led by parent Liberty Global and network supplier Ericsson, the trial uses mmWave radio technology to connect two 'trunk' points over 3 km with a 10 Gbps signal. This signal is then converted within a cabinet, and services are then delivered to premises over a full-fibre connection.
The homes are connected with trial speeds of 1 Gbps download and 150 Mbps upload, alongside full TV services, using Virgin's V6 set-top box and Hub 3.0 router. The 10 Gbps radio link has only been tested with 12 homes, but could potentially support delivery of residential services to 500 homes when a 40 percent average annual data consumption growth is taken into account. The technology can also be reconfigured and upgraded to support a 20 Gbps connection, to connect 2,000 homes in one area.
