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| Virgin Media to invest £3bn in broadband | Virgin Media to invest £3bn in broadband |
| (35 minutes later) | |
| Virgin Media has announced what it calls the biggest investment in broadband infrastructure in the UK for more than a decade. | Virgin Media has announced what it calls the biggest investment in broadband infrastructure in the UK for more than a decade. |
| The firm will invest £3bn in improving its fibre optic broadband network, increasing the network's reach from 13 million to 17 million homes. | The firm will invest £3bn in improving its fibre optic broadband network, increasing the network's reach from 13 million to 17 million homes. |
| It said the investment would also create 6,000 new jobs of which 1,000 would be apprenticeships. | It said the investment would also create 6,000 new jobs of which 1,000 would be apprenticeships. |
| Virgin Media currently has five million customers. | |
| The company is already in the process of expanding its network to 110,000 homes across east London, Glasgow, Sunderland and Teesside. | |
| Virgin Media said the additional £3bn in broadband investment would be worth £8bn in terms of stimulating UK economic activity. | |
| However, the money will be spent on filling in gaps in its existing network rather than widening the network to rural areas, which critics say has long been neglected by communications companies such as Virgin and BT. | |
| Speaking to the BBC, Virgin chief executive Tom Mockridge said it was BT's job to do more to bridge the so-called "digital divide". | |
| He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "I think an investment of this size is unambiguously helping to close the digital divide. Everything can't happen at once so we are really focusing on the areas where we can bring ultra fast broadband as quickly as possible and as effectively as possible." |