Virgin Media is planning to introduce 50Gbps network services later this year after a successful trial with Nortel and Juniper in April. The trial named “North-South” trial was the first of its kind in the UK.
They carried 40Gbps traffic on the Virgin network over a 350km stretch between London and Manchester. It also demonstrated Virgin Media’s ability to provide a dynamic 40G wavelength service over its entire Nortel-supplied CPL (Common Photonic Layer) 2500km nationwide network.
The test used Juniper’s routers and Nortel’s Adaptive Optical Engine, which the firm claims can wring 40Gbps and 100Gbps speeds out of existing 10Gbps networks.
According to Daniel Hennessy, director of technical architecture at Virgin Media:
Our aim for this trial was to ensure that we continue to meet the growing capacity needs of the high-speed services we deliver.
No firm date has been set by Virgin, but according to its first-quarter financial results they would introduce it later this year offering four tiers of service with network speeds of 2Gbps, 10Gbps, 20Gbps and 50Gbps.
Our optical network will provide a solid foundation for growth as it takes advantage of technology designed to avoid electrical regeneration and, where possible, reduce the incremental cost of scaling transport capacity.
Hennessy added.
Virgin Media now has 3.5 million domestic broadband subscribers in the UK. But average revenue per user for cable services is down to £41.91 from £42.75 last year, which has depressed revenue by two per cent to just over £1bn.
Operating loss is down to £5m from £15m this time last year, but the saving is dwarfed by the group’s long-term debt of nearly £6bn.
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