Gavin welcomes faster broadband roll-out
Gavin Newlands, MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, has welcomed the announcement from Virgin Media that the communities of Houston, Crosslee, Craigends and Bridge of Weir are to benefit from an ultrafast broadband and entertainment boost this year as part of a £3bn network expansion across the UK.
Earlier this year, Virgin Media launched its ‘Supercharging Local Communities’ initiative - urging local residents and businesses to vote for their community to be one of the first to benefit from the scheme and influence the decision on where to begin.
Homes and businesses across the country have been campaigning locally for Virgin Media to connect their street, with over 7,000 votes cast between 29 February to 29 April via the Cable My Street website. Houston, Crosslee and Craigends were ranked second place and Bridge of Weir in third place in the top ten list, with works expected to begin in the area this summer.
Residents and businesses who take our service in Houston, Crosslee, Craigends and Bridge of Weir will be connected with fibre broadband run directly to their premise offering ultrafast, future-proof connectivity. Virgin Media recently committed to connecting fibre to the premise (FTTP) to at least a quarter of the 4 million additional homes and businesses being added to the Virgin Media network as part of its ‘Project Lightning’ expansion plans. The Renfrewshire communities will be amongst the first to benefit from this pledge.
Gavin Newlands, MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, said: “I am well aware of the frustrations that the local residents of Bridge of Weir and Houston, Crosslee & Craigends have had with not being able to secure a decent and effective internet service. Being able to connect to the internet is not a luxury but an essential part of our daily lives – it’s not only important to households but absolutely vital to local businesses.
“I am delighted to learn that Bridge of Weir and Houston, Crosslee & Craigends will now benefit from Virgin Media’s ultrafast broadband network. I trust that this will provide more, and better, opportunities for the local residents to gain access to the web, and will be something that will be welcomed by the various communities.”
Steve Carlin, Regional Director for Scotland at Virgin Media said: “Congratulations to residents of Houston, Crosslee, Craigends and Bridge of Weir on coming second and third place in our leader board. The support and interest from communities across the UK has exceeded our expectations and we’re delighted to be supercharging these areas with ultrafast broadband and better entertainment. By investing and delivering better connectivity in Renfrewshire, it shows that ultrafast broadband isn’t just for the big cities.”
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Ultrafast broadband up to 300 Mbps
For local residents, Virgin Media’s Vivid 200 broadband offers the fastest widely available broadband – with download speeds of up to 200Mbps. This is more than two and a half times faster than the top widely available speeds from BT, TalkTalk and Sky meaning that a whole household can stream movies, music and more all at the same time.
For local businesses, Virgin Media Business now offers ultrafast connectivity, with speeds of up to 300Mbps – almost four times faster than its main competitors’ widely available top speeds. This enables businesses to reach their potential by delivering better services and greater capacity.
New, faster build method
This expansion uses an innovative way of bringing ultrafast broadband to people’s homes with minimal disruption. The approach, called narrow-trenching, reduces the width of the trench used to lay optical fibre cables from around 40cm to just 10cm and enables engineers to cover up to 100m in a day, making it more than twice as fast as current methods. The residents will receive the very latest broadband technology with fibre delivered direct to the home. A similar technique has been used recently in Leicester where Virgin Media is connecting six villages.
As network expansion continues across the country, Virgin Media calls for those who haven’t yet registered for interest – whether in Houston, Crosslee, Craigends, Bridge of Weir or elsewhere – in getting connected to ultrafast broadband and better entertainment to visit www.virginmedia.com/cablemystreet
