Trouble Bubble for Virgin Media as it struggles to keep up with £3bn network expansion plan

The British company Virgin Media is probably already running behind schedule, which in return has threatened the growth targets of its parent company, the pan-European cable giant Liberty Global plc.

Given the fact that Virgin Media’s £3bn network expansion is not going to take place any sooner, it is revealed that in the month of June the Project Lighting scheme fell 61 pc short from its target for connecting new homes. It completed work on 27,199 premises compared with plans for 69,278 new lines. Meanwhile work to “infill” areas close to existing cables, which accounted for biggest share of the overall goal, reached only 43pc of its target.

A virgin media spokesperson said, “We are currently in reboot mode for Project Lightning as we increase the scale of delivery of the biggest broadband infrastructure build programme in more than a decade. In the meantime, sales, average revenue per user, and build costs are all broadly tracking in line with our expectations.”

It is evident that figures might fluctuate given the fact that investors are concerned over the progress of Project Lightning, a plan that was initiated to challenge BT by plans to extend cable access from half the country to around two thirds by 2020. Liberty Global was forced to announce that it had overstated progress on the project by 142,000 connections.