UK - Virgin Media has no intention of offering wholesale access to its cable network

[zdnet] Virgin Media has no intention of wholesaling network capacity to other ISPs, the company said on Thursday.

Speaking at a Westminster eForum on broadband, Virgin broadband chief Duncan Higgins said his company selling wholesale capacity "wouldn't actually add a single superfast broadband home" to the UK, because BT already offers wholesale access.

Higgins also said that "everywhere BT is rolling out superfast broadband is where Virgin has already [been]", eliciting a repeated exclamation from BT strategy chief Liv Garfield that "that's not true".

The Virgin broadband chief had been responding to a question from Trefor Davies of business ISP Timico, who seemed unhappy that small ISPs cannot get wholesale access from anyone other than BT — there are only two major networks in the UK that extend across most of the country: BT's and Virgin's.

"It doesn't change the competitive context because BT's already solving that problem," Higgins insisted.


Virgin Media refuses to provide wholesale broadband