Broadband News
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Growth Slows and Bits Go Faster at Virgin Media
26 Feb 2009 | 10.26 Europe/London
Virgin Media's Q4 2008 results show the net growth in cable broadband subscribers down nearly 50% on the same time last year. ADSL subscriber numbers also continued to fall but at a slower rate than the previous quarter. An operating loss of £50m for the quarter was reported, compared to a profit of £50m for the previous quarter. The general decline in broadband growth as the market nears saturation and a reduction in house moves due to the economic climate are at least part of the story behind the figures.
Earlier in the week VM announced "a major programme to move millions of its current 2Mb customers up to a superfast 10Mb service" which will be welcome news for the 50% of the population able to access VM's hybrid fibre/coax cable network. Out of the total 3.68m customers only one-third (1.2m) were paying extra for the faster 10, 20 and 50M services so this move will benefit nearly 2.5m customers and have a significant impact on the average speed of VM and UK broadband connections.
For the majority of the population not on the VM network the above improvements will deepen the digital divide in terms of access speeds.
[ VM Q4 results ]
Earlier in the week VM announced "a major programme to move millions of its current 2Mb customers up to a superfast 10Mb service" which will be welcome news for the 50% of the population able to access VM's hybrid fibre/coax cable network. Out of the total 3.68m customers only one-third (1.2m) were paying extra for the faster 10, 20 and 50M services so this move will benefit nearly 2.5m customers and have a significant impact on the average speed of VM and UK broadband connections.
For the majority of the population not on the VM network the above improvements will deepen the digital divide in terms of access speeds.
[ VM Q4 results ]