Virgin Media to deliver fibre to Orange, T-Mobile and 3 Mobile

Virgin Media has agreed to supply mobile carriers Orange, T-Mobile and 3 Mobile with a fibre optic broadband network to enhance their data propositions.

The cable company's business broadband subsidiary has signed up the service providers - which comprise the Mobile Broadband Network Ltd (MBNL) alliance - to its Sync-E solution.

According to Virgin Media Business, the product will help MBNL's members to lay the foundations required for the rollout of 4G mobile services.

Under the £100 million, eight-year agreement, Virgin will build 14 regional aggregation networks to enhance the bandwidth offered by the wireless operators, allowing subscribers to make greater use of video calling, mobile TV and other applications.

Neil Berkett, chief executive of Virgin Media, said being connected to social media and the web at all times has become a "basic expectation" of mobile users.

"Investing now means [MBNL will] be able to deal with the escalating data demands of today and tomorrow," he added.

To help it meet the requirements of the contract, Virgin has signed a separate deal with packet optical networking solutions firm Transmode for the deployment of Ethernet-based backhaul service delivery networks across the country.