Virgin Media Business has struck a £100m deal with mobile networks Everything Everywhere and Three, to boost 3G-based Internet access for all three customer bases in the UK.
The deal will see Virgin Media Business build 14 regional aggregation networks across the UK for MBNL – the joint venture between Three UK and T-Mobile – to support 3G-enabled functionality from video-calling to mobile TV.
Neil Berkett, chief executive officer of Virgin Media, said: “People no longer expect to simply make calls from their mobile phone. Being connected all the time to social networks, the internet and their favourite apps is very much a basic expectation which operators need to deliver on. Investing now means they will be able to deal with the escalating data demands of today and tomorrow.”
Graham Payne, managing director of MBNL, said: “Mobile data and the increase in smartphone usage is a big growth opportunity for us. Connecting our users to the online world, from any location and from any device, is at the heart of what we do.
“Working together with Virgin Media Business, the first company in the market to offer this synchronous Gigabit Ethernet service, we will be able to scale for future demand.”