BSkyB signs broadband fibre deal with Virgin Media Business

BSkyB has signed a five year £49 million broadband fibre deal with Virgin Media Business, which will increase its network capacity tenfold.

Pushing speeds up to 10Gbps, the core of the new network is expected to be in place by the end of the year and is set to help BSkyB improve its backhaul network, seeing approximately one third of Sky’s unbundled local exchanges connected to the company’s own nationwide broadband network.

“As we see traffic on our network grow significantly year-on-year, this agreement provides us with the capacity we need to keep innovating for customers and as such are committed to maintaining our high-capacity network,” said Mohamed Hammady, Director of Sky Network Services at BSkyB.

Tony Grace, Managing director of Virgin Media Business said that high capacity connectivity is “vital” in today’s digitally driven world.

“Whilst we’re concentrating on developing better services for the public in our consumer division, we also believe that our high capacity network is ideally placed to provide the underlying infrastructure that can help other providers with their backhaul capacity needs,” he said.

The news comes shortly after rival BT announced that the company will use fibre broadband to deliver linear TV, expected to cover two thirds of UK households by next spring.