Manchester will be the first city to benefit from ‘Project Lightning’, Virgin Media’s project to expand high-speed broadband.
The company will roll out its ‘ultra-fast broadband’ to 150,000 premises in Manchester, with work on the first 20,000 beginning this week. The launch was marked with a promotional ‘High-Speed Selfie’ photo booth featuring ex-Girls Aloud member Sarah Harding.
The rollout will see a £75m investment in Manchester with 500 new jobs being created, a statement from Virgin Media claimed.
Virgin Media claims the service offers speeds of 152 Mb, which is twice as fast as the fastest speeds offered by BT, TalkTalk and Sky. Google Fiber, currently being rolled out in the US, offers 1GB per second connectivity.
Virgin Media plans to expand the service to 4 million premises over the next five years.
Digital Economy Minister Ed Vaizey, said: "This is wonderful news for Manchester residents and businesses. We are in the midst of a remarkable transformation of the UK’s digital landscape, and Virgin Media’s £3bn investment will play an important role in ensuring our cities are fully equipped to meet the challenges of the digital age in which we live."
Tom Mockridge, Virgin Media Chief Executive Officer, said: "Our message is simple: help us to cable your street. If you want to switch to broadband speeds twice as fast as you can get today, simply register with Virgin Media to ‘cablemystreet’."
