Virgin Media halts full fibre upgrades in the UK
Virgin Media O2 has confirmed that its fibre upgrade programme will be halted beyond existing commitments. The telecoms giant made the announcement on Tuesday (3 November) as part of its Q3 2026 results.
Instead, the operator will now be offering a low-cost upgrade which will bring 2Gbps speeds to the majority of the cable network in 2027.
The older network carries fibre to the street and uses a coaxial cable for the final connection to the homes using a setup known as hybrid fibre-coaxial.
This type of configuration has less theoretical bandwidth than a full fibre network connection, but it is cost-effective to deploy.
For this reason, symmetrical upload and download speeds are not available on 2Gbps broadband packages served over Virgin Media’s HFC network.
Virgin Media’s fibre currently reaches some 9.4 million homes as of the end of September, including homes on the nextfibre network. Virgin Media’s fixed-line network can serve 18.8 million homes in total.
£800 million in cost-cutting
The decision to stop its full fibre upgrade forms part of a massive cost-cutting drive across the Virgin Media group.
The group said it is ‘taking action to create a simpler company, reducing costs and prioritising investment to improve customer experience and commercial performance’.
This includes targeting savings of about £400 million in 2027 and £600 million in 2028, rising to £800 million a year by 2029. Restructuring costs of approximately £250 million are expected, indicating mass job cuts on the way.
Broadband customers still leaving
Notably, the results show that the group is still losing customers, with 22,100 broadband customers leaving in the three months to 30 September. This is down from the 30,200 it lost a year earlier but will be a cause for concern.
Average monthly revenue per fixed-line customer also fell 5% to £45.83, which the company put down to tougher competition and the timing of annual price rises.
On a positive note, Virgin Media said it recorded the lowest level of broadband complaints of any major UK provider in Ofcom’s latest data.
