Virgin Media unexpected FTTP network build

I received a knock on my door from a Virgin Media Community Manager and they handed a flyer and advised that i will be getting FTTP within 6 weeks using the BT ducting.

My street has been marked on thinkbroadband site as having VM for years, but it has not.
When the estate was being built, apparently the local telecom provider in 1996 took too long to build their infrastructure, so they house builders went ahead and built houses, which 25 years later meant the Virgin network was not available to my home.

Over the years i contacted VM via cablemystreet and the area managers and it has always cost too much per property for the network build.

This has all changed due to this recent knock on the door.

Im actually well chuffed. Openreach put their fibre in the street last year, Cityfibre is due in the next few months and VM within 6 weeks.

Hopefully there's enough room in the final duct to my house, and they wont need to rip up my drive.

Hold out, don't go for VM, FTTP or not, their network is woeful compared to others.

In reply to a post by BuckleZ:

Hold out, don't go for VM, FTTP or not, their network is woeful compared to others.

Indeed, in the sense that you'll not get the same service that CityFibre or Openreach would deliver via pure FTTP. VM are still delivering 'cable technology' but just using Fibre now aka RFoG, or Radio Frequency over Glass. It still has a lot of the downsides of cable like latency and jitter.

Plus just from general customer service VM are awful.

Their ambition is to transition all their customers completely to XGS-PON in the next six years apparently. Though they’re still actively deploying loads of RFoG/DOCSIS to customers under Project Lightning. Not sure what the thinking is there.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Not sure what the thinking is there.

Turning a huge oil tanker takes a while

Yeah I guess so. Perhaps a little “once a cable company, always a cable company” mentality going on. Either way they will have to massively ramp up pace in the next year or two, otherwise it’s a huge self imposed target. Then there’s the wholesale network ambition…

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Yeah I guess so. Perhaps a little “once a cable company, always a cable company” mentality going on. Either way they will have to massively ramp up pace in the next year or two, otherwise it’s a huge self imposed target. Then there’s the wholesale network ambition…

At a strategic level that is the right decision... but speed and quality of execution are the big unknowns here and it will be many years, XGS-PON or not, before I trust VM again.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Their ambition is to transition all their customers completely to XGS-PON in the next six years apparently. Though they’re still actively deploying loads of RFoG/DOCSIS to customers under Project Lightning. Not sure what the thinking is there.

They want XGSPON available everywhere by then, they are going to be running DOCSIS for the foreseeable. Zero dates for DOCSIS switch off.

In reply to a post by Mitchy_mitch:

I received a knock on my door from a Virgin Media Community Manager and they handed a flyer and advised that i will be getting FTTP within 6 weeks using the BT ducting.

Nice! Be seeing a lot more of this as older hybrid areas are FTTP enabled and PIA can be used to reach new properties. Until they had the FTTP ready to go they couldn't use PIA and I guess the maths didn't add up to dig.