Wholesale Broadband Provision refused by Virgin Media

The prominent cable and fibre optic broadband provider and the main rival to BT in the fibre optic broadband market of the United Kingdom, Virgin Media has shown an emphatic no at the querries regarding their intention of offering other internet service providers network capacity from the status of a wholesaler.

The chief of broadband at Virgin Media UK, Duncan Higgins said while speaking in London at a Westminster eForum that his firm selling wholesale network capacity would not actually add one super-fast broadband household to the United Kingdom, since wholesale access was already offered by BT.

Higgins added that in every place super-fast broadband was being rolled out by BT, his company had already established a similar service. This claim by Higgins, as a matter of fact, elicited a repeated 'that is not true' exclamation from Liv Garfield, the strategy chief of BT.

Incidentally, the chief of Virgin Media was responding to a querry from Trefor Davies of Timico, the business broadband provider, who seemed dejected over small operators' not getting wholesale cpacity access from any entity other than BT.

Although, there existed only two major broadband internet networks in the United Kingdom that extended across the most parts of the country; Virgin Media and BT, Higgins insisted that it hardly tend to alter the competitive context owing to BT's already resolving the issue.