Several credible sources have informed ISPreview that broadband ISP Virgin Media (O2) is gearing up for an important new product launch, which is expected to occur in March 2025 (delays still possible). The expectation is that this will reflect the opening up of their new XGS-PON powered full fibre network in existing coax (cable) areas to live customers.
The operator is currently in the process of upgrading millions of their legacy Hybrid Fibre Coax (HFC / DOCSIS 3.1) powered areas to support the latest Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) technology, which is a programme they’re aiming to complete by 2028. On top of that, they’re separately rolling out the same technology to an additional 5-7 million premises via nexfibre (this can already reach 2 million premises).
Despite this, Virgin Media has so far only made nexfibre’s newly built XGS-PON network available to new customers, while those existing customers in HFC (non-nexfibre) areas (c.16 million premises) are NOT currently able to access or order packages using their XGS-PON upgraded areas (aka – Project Mustang / Fibre Up). The latter includes those served by Virgin’s older Radio Frequency over Glass (RFoG) based FTTP lines.
Admittedly, most of their HFC / RFOG areas have yet to see the XGS-PON upgrade take place (it’s a multi-year upgrade programme, costing c.£100 per premises), but several million premises do now have both Virgin’s HFC / RFOG and XGS-PON networks existing side-by-side. The fact that XGS-PON is just sitting there, doing absolutely nothing (i.e. not generating revenue), makes very little sense. But that may, finally, be about to change.
Several credible sources have informed ISPreview that Virgin Media is gearing up to launch new products in March 2025 (although delays are still possible). The expectation is that this will also involve making their network upgrade (XGS-PON) areas, at least those that have been fully completed, available to customers for the first time.
ISPreview has seen no indication of any bulk automated HFC to XGS-PON upgrade plans, which would be very difficult due to the need for an engineer visit (e.g. installing an optical modem / ONT inside homes). Instead, this is likely to be a much more organic process, with the change only occurring when customers choose to upgrade or re-contract their package.
However, this is not strictly the first time that Virgin Media has made their XGS-PON upgrade areas available, since a brief test or soft launch also appeared to occur late last year. Several customers reported that they had been upgraded via a door-step sold trial in selected areas, which gave them 6 months of free service and £200 worth of Amazon vouchers alongside an FTTP package (most appeared to have got Virgin’s 2Gbps package). But we understand this was paused due to problems with Virgin’s ordering/billing system, which have hopefully now been ironed out.
The official line from Virgin Media on all this is, of course, “no comment“, which is generally what they seem to say for absolutely every query we send their way about future products. Finally, we should point out that Virgin Media are also gearing up to make these same XGS-PON upgrade areas available to wholesale during the first half of 2025, but we don’t yet know precisely when that will occur (we suspect much later in the spring than March, but you never know).