Virgin Media has announced plans to upgrade 50,000 premises in Nottingham to ultrafast broadband at a cost of £25 million, as part of its Project Lightning scheme.
The U.K. cableco has selected areas of Nottingham city centre as well as surrounding suburbs and towns, including Mansfield, Newark-upon-Trent and Grantham. Locations will be prioritised according to local demand; prospective customers can register their interest on Virgin Media’s Website.
Once upgraded, customers can expect to receive peak downlink speeds of up to 152 Mbps.
In a statement, Virgin Media hailed Nottingham City Co uncil’s collaborative approach, particularly its Permit Scheme, which encourages the likes of Virgin to carry out public works on quieter roads at quieter times of day.
"The early interest from homeowners, businesses and Nottingham City Council has been instrumental in Virgin Media being able to fast track our network expansion plans in the area," said Virgin Media CEO Tom Mockridge.
"The rollout of ultrafast Internet will complement the County Council’s Better Broadband for Nottinghamshire programme and further strengthen our position as one of the best connected counties in the country – great news for the local economy, jobs and growth," added Diana Meale, chair of Nottinghamshire Council’s economic development committee.
In addition to Nottingham, Virgin Media has also committed to rolling out ultrafast broadband to 150,000 premises in Manchester and 80,000 in Leeds.
The deployment is part of Virgin Media’s £3 billion Project Lightning programme, which aims to extend its DOCSIS 3.0 network to 4 million premises by 2020.
