Cable Broadband

The reach of the network has changed little over the past few years due to a lack of investment capital although there is some expansion starting in Southampton late 2011. Now that BT has been forced by Ofcom to share their ducts and poles there is a possibility of some future growth but for now you can only have this service if it already passes your premises. Given that the whole network is consumer focussed, businesses in high streets and residential areas will be more likely to get this service than those on a trading estate.

The Virgin Media network is a hybrid of fibre and coax. The national fibre network reaches down to a multiplexor cabinet potentially serving several thousand premises. Here it is switched to copper coax and fed down to street cabinets before being distributed underground past the premises typically with small triangular manholes for access.

Virgin Media is in the process of upgrading most of it’s network to DOCSIS 3.0. This gives improved performance over earlier DOCSISstandards.