Wales witnesses Virgin Broadband Trials over Electricity Poles

The leading cable broadband provider operating in the United Kingdom, Virgin Media has announced today that it would be delivering broadband services through electricity poles to the users of Crumlin village, Caerphilly in Wales. According to the ISP, the Welsh village will be the first in the UK to enjoy internet rolled out via electricity poles.

As a matter of fact, the prominent fibre optic broadband provider has signed a contract with Western Power Distribution owned utility telecoms infrastructure provider, Surf Telecoms to install service to the area. The pilot that starts next month would offer the customers not only the 50Mbps broadband service but also the TV service of Virgin Media.

This pilot that is believed to run into 2011, forms part of the plans of Virgin Media for extending its broadband network to cover more households. 500,000 frshly built properties in the country are expected to be covered by Virgin Media.

The ISP believes that the pilots of the kind, and a similar overhead pilot engaging telegraph poles in Berkshire's Woolhampton, could help it in reaching existing areas that lacked next generation broadband.

The executive director for broadband at Virgin Media, Jon James said that they were already delivering broadband internet speeds of up to 50Mbps and quite shortly were a 100Mbps broadband service to more than half of all homes in the United Kingdom. He added that teaming up with firms such as Surf Telecoms, they were pushing the boundaries for making sure that households across the UK benefited from superfast broadband.