UK ISP Virgin Media (O2) has today confirmed to ISPreview that they and network operator nexfibre have nearly completed the integration of Upp’s full fibre (FTTP) broadband network. Most of the operator’s premises have already been transferred to nexfibre, but we’re told that the remaining properties should be completed next month (December).
Just to recap. Upp was originally established as a £1bn project to deploy a new Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network across 1 million premises in the East of England (here). But they only ended up reaching 175,000 premises (inc. 4,000 customers) before the UK Government ordered their main backer, LetterOne, to sell the operator over national security concerns that related to their former links with sanctioned Russian oligarchs (here).
LetterOne thus ended up selling Upp, at a loss (i.e. “less than the £143.7m that (LetterOne) had by then invested“), to rival operator nexfibre in September 2023 (here), while partner ISP Virgin Media took on their retail customers. Virgin Media and nexfibre have since been gradually working to integrate Upp’s network and service into their own infrastructure and platforms, which has taken a little longer than some expected.
At the end of last week one of our readers (credits to Marcus of the ‘Better Internet Dashboard‘) noticed that a sizeable number of Upp’s premises, specifically those in locations where Virgin Media’s service had not previously been present (e.g. Swaffham), suddenly became available for new customers to order (speeds of up to 2Gbps, just like via nexfibre).
The change was big enough to make us think that the integration might have finally completed, although VMO2 has since confirmed to ISPreview that “most” of the premises have now been transferred, albeit “not all of them“. The remaining premises are expected to be fully integrated during December 2024. As a result, the next quarterly progress update from VMO2 and nexfibre in early 2025 should finally include Upp’s premises into their totals.