Network operator nexfibre, which shares some of their parentage with UK broadband ISP partner Virgin Media (O2), has announced that they’ve added 20,000 additional homes in the Buckinghamshire (England) town of Milton Keynes to the coverage of their new 2Gbps speed Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP / XGS-PON) broadband network.
Until recently Virgin Media didn’t have much of any presence in Milton Keynes, which has been dominated by gigabit-capable rivals like Cityfibre and Openreach (not to mention some smaller deployments from Hyperoptic, OFNL and others). But you can now find Virgin and nexfibre’s new FTTP network running across much of the eastern edge of the town.
Nexfibre itself has already covered over 1 million premises across the UK with their new full fibre network, and they’re currently in the process of investing another £1bn during 2024, which should enable them to cover an additional 1 million UK premises (on top of their existing footprint).
Just for some context. Telefónica, Liberty Global and InfraVia Capital Partners originally setup the new £4.5bn nexfibre joint venture in 2022 (here), which aims to deploy an open access fibre network to reach “up to” 7 million UK homes (starting with 5m by 2026) in areas NOT currently served by Virgin Media’s network of 16m+ premises. The funding reflects £3.3bn of fully underwritten financing and up to £1.4bn in equity commitments.