The desire to provide UK homes and businesses with super-fast fibre seems not to be the fight of the UK government only.
A new joint venture formed by Liberty Global- the parent company of Virgin Media backed by a range of high profile infrastructure funds would look to increase the expansion of it's ultrafast broadband network outside of the UK's main towns and cities(rural areas).

The anchor tenant of these new networks will be Virgin Media. Potential avenues will however be opened to include traffic from other internet service providers.

Over 14.7 million homes and businesses in the UK are currently covered by Virgin Media's full fibre ultrafast networks. As part of the company's Project Lightning network expansion launched in 2015, an additional 1.7 million connections have been added to their portfolio.

Last month, Virgin Media announced that it was launching a small scale, fixed wireless access trial to boost gigabit capable broadband services in rural communities across the UK.

The trial used radio technology from Ericsson to broadcast millimetre wave spectrum between two “trunk” points, over a distance of 3km at speeds of up to 10Gbps.

While the initial trial only connected 12 homes, the existing 10Gbps radio link could support the delivery of services to 500 homes and businesses. The system could be scaled up to 20Gbps, which would provide services to up to 2,000 premises.

While fixed wireless access remains an option for reaching the UK's hardest to reach communities, the decision to launch a rural fibre JV will mark a decided uptick in Virgin Media's ambitions for rural connectivity in the UK.

REFERENCE

Kelly, C. (2019). Liberty Global eyes Virgin Media expansion in the UK. Total Telecom.
Source: https://www.totaltele.com/503467/Liberty-Global-eyes-Virgin-Media-expansion-in-the-UK