BUSINESSES will benefit from a £3Bn expansion of superfast broadband, promises Virgin Media.
It will spend the money on improving its fibre optic broadband network, increasing the network’s reach from 13M to 17M homes.
BBC Business reports that the company says the project is the biggest investment in broadband infrastructure in the UK for more than a decade.
Virgin Media said the additional £3Bn in broadband investment would be worth £8Bn in terms of stimulating UK economic activity
Virgin said the investment would also create 6,000 new jobs of which 1,000 will be apprenticeships.
The company is already in the process of expanding its network to 110,000 homes across east London, Glasgow, Sunderland and Teesside.
Virgin Media said the additional £3Bn in broadband investment would be worth £8Bn in terms of stimulating UK economic activity.
However, the money will be spent on filling in gaps in its existing network rather than widening the network to rural areas, which critics say has long been neglected by communications companies such as Virgin and BT.
Speaking to the BBC, Virgin chief executive Tom Mockridge said it was BT’s job to do more to bridge the so-called “digital divide”.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “I think an investment of this size is unambiguously helping to close the digital divide. Everything can’t happen at once so we are really focusing on the areas where we can bring ultra fast broadband as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible.”
He also called on BT to do more to invest in improving existing infrastructure to help speed up internet services in the countryside.
The investment comes at Virgin Media announced a 2.3% increase in total revenues to £4.214Bn for the year to the end of December compared with a year earlier.
Virgin said the increase in revenue was largely the result of increased cable subscription revenue, which grew 3% last year.
