VMO2 discuss funding for fibre rollout with new JV

Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is in discussion with potential financial partners to create a new network venture in the UK.

VMO2, a joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefonica, will build a full fibre broadband network serving seven million additional homes and businesses by 2027.

Liberty Global aims to expand the coverage of Virgin Media O2 with the project, as the telecoms group will commit to being an anchor tenant of the new network, according to the company.

The entire network will be upgraded to fibre to the premise (FTTP) technology by 2028 as Virgin Media O2 seeks to maintain its technological leadership and develop genuine converged products that can compete with BT.

Lutz Schüler, chief executive of Virgin Media O2, said: “In a historic year for our business, which saw the completion of the UK’s largest ever telecoms merger, we stayed focused and finished 2021 on a high.

As part of our mission to upgrade the UK, we expanded our 5G coverage, completed our gigabit rollout as promised, and we now plan to extend our footprint to ~23m premises through a new fibre venture being set up by our shareholders

We saw sustained subscriber growth across fixed and mobile as the demand for fast, reliable connectivity remains, and delivered an increase in profitability while investing more than £2bn in our network, services and future growth drivers.

We’ve started this year by being the only big four mobile network to not reintroduce EU roaming charges. This challenger spirit runs deep across the organisation, and we have every intention of building on this energy and maintaining the momentum we’ve built up.”

The company was not under pressure to make wholesale deals.

“We are not committing wholesale revenue to finance the 7 million homes,” he said. “Virgin Media as an anchor tenant is more than enough.”

CT Bureau