Virgin Media today announced that it will expand its fibre optic network to 7,000 homes and businesses in Swindon as part of its £3bn Project Lightning programme.
This investment extends Virgin Media's existing network which passes 65,000 premises in the town giving more Swindon residents and business owners a much needed, and demanded, connectivity and entertainment boost with access to the fastest widely-available broadband speeds.
Fibre optic cables will be connected directly to premises Swindon (known as fibre to the premise - FTTP) offering ultrafast, future-proof connectivity with speeds of 200Mbps for consumers and 300Mbps for businesses and home workers.
Work will start in the next two months and will be completed in early 2017. A significant part of the build will take place in north-west Swindon covering the Haydon, Priory Vale and Blunsdon St Andrew areas. Network gaps will also be filled throughout Swindon in areas including Greenmeadow, Old Town, Toothill and Eastleaze. Local residents can find out more details about when their homes will be connected by visiting virginmedia.com/cablemystreet and registering their interest.
Paul Buttery, Chief Operating Officer at Virgin Media, said: The calls from residents in Swindon for better, faster broadband have been heard and Virgin Media will soon be bringing our ultrafast connectivity and top-notch entertainment to more parts of the town
This investment demonstrates that under Project Lightning Virgin Media will build to areas which no other fixed broadband provider has previously been able to connect. Given that public funding has been used in some areas of Swindon to fund a mobile broadband solution, it's vital that local authorities properly assess the prospect of private investment before using taxpayer's money to fund broadband rollout.
We urge more communities to come together and register their interest. Your area could be connected next.
Justin Tomlinson MP, Member of Parliament for Swindon North said: This is a significant and very much welcome boost for fellow Swindon residents. There is absolutely no doubt there will be huge demand, especially as for many it will be the first time they have access to genuinely superfast fibre broadband.
Cllr Toby Elliott, Swindon Borough Council's Cabinet Member responsible for superfast broadband, said: "Residents and businesses across the town have been calling for this quality, high speed, fibre broadband for some time. Justin Tomlinson MP, the ward Councillors and myself have worked with Virgin Media for over a year to deliver this and I couldn t be more delighted about their investment in Swindon."
Ultrafast broadband up to 300 Mbps
For residents, Virgin Media's Vivid 200 broadband offers the fastest widely available broadband with download speeds of up to 200Mbps. This is more than two and a half times faster than the top widely available speeds from BT, TalkTalk and Sky meaning that a whole household can stream movies, music and more all at the same time.
For businesses, Virgin Media Business now offers ultrafast connectivity, with speeds of up to 300Mbps almost four times faster than its main competitors' widely available top speeds. This enables businesses to reach their potential by delivering better services and greater capacity.
Plus, the latest entertainment with up to 260 TV channels, including 66 HD channels as well as access to Sky Sports, Sky Movies and BT Sport, and an extensive TV on demand library of exclusive shows, box sets and movies.
New, faster build method
This FTTP expansion uses an innovative way of bringing ultrafast broadband to people's homes with minimal disruption. The approach, called narrow-trenching, reduces the width of the trench used to lay optical 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. Swindon residents will receive the very latest broadband technology with fibre delivered direct to the home.
While a significant proportion of this expansion will see fibre connected directly to premises, Virgin Media also has an existing Hybrid Fibre Coaxial (HFC) network in Swindon and in many areas of the UK. This HFC network combines optical fibre and coaxial cable. The core network is fibre optic which provides ultrafast broadband to the street cabinet. Broadband is then delivered to the majority of premises using the Company's superior coaxial cable powered by DOCSIS3 technology. Regardless of the method used to connect premises FTTP or HFC - all residents will receive the same experience and the same ultrafast speeds.
Virgin Media recently pledged to provide FTTP to at least one in four properties in its Project Lightning expansion.
Project Lightning
By the end of 2019 Virgin Media has committed to increase connectivity across the UK, expanding its optical fibre network to 4 million more homes and businesses.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
31/08/2025
Legrand | AV, a global specialist and industry leader in audiovisual solutions, returns to CEDIA Expo 2025, taking place Sept. 4-6 in Denver, with a powerful li...
31/08/2025
Global media technology company Backlight will unveil new capabilities in its Iconik, Wildmoka, and Zype product lines at IBC2025 (booth #1.D09), September 12 1...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
Virgin Media today announced that it will expand its fibre optic network to 7,000 homes and businesses in Swindon as part of its £3bn Project Lightning programme.
