Noting that as demand accelerates for 10G and 100G services and datacentre capacity expands beyond traditional hubs, Virgin Media Business (VMBW) has announced it is marking a major milestone in Project Spark, its wholesale network transformation programme, with the investment now translating into measurable delivery gains.
The fixed wholesale connectivity arm of leading UK operator of Virgin Media O2 says that as hyperscale, edge and enterprise bandwidth requirements continue to grow and require higher bandwidths, it is positioning its network to support the next wave of UK digital infrastructure expansion.
Project Spark was designed to fundamentally reshape how high-capacity services in the UK are built, priced and delivered. As a multi-year upgrade of VMBW’s core, metro and Ethernet architecture, the project is said to have been engineered to support faster provisioning and scalable high-bandwidth connectivity, and minimise capacity bottlenecks. The company says the programme has reached a point of scale, with national deployments now live and delivering measurable performance gains in particular in terms of service delivery and lead times.
To date, the project has resulted in four major infrastructure upgrades: a new national high-capacity services (NHCS) Core Network; a rapid deployment Metro network (converged interconnect network – CIN); A rapid deployment Metro network (CIN); and a modernised MPLS platform.
A high-performance NHCS core layer stretching across 23 strategic sites supports 83% of network demand. Underpinned by Ciena’s portfolio of optical, routing and switching technologies, the architecture enables low latency, packet-optical Ethernet services with significantly reduced design complexity.
In addition, 177 regional sites have been upgraded with pre-provisioned 10G capacity and a resilient crescent-based network architecture. This is said to have enabled faster and more predictable delivery of National Ethernet, NHCS and DIA services. A Cisco-powered MPLS network is being deployed to support 100G ENNIs across 38 sites, alongside 1G and 10G aggregation across 330 network locations. The platform allows for end-to-end orchestration which makes the provisioning of Ethernet services easier.
Alongside its core and metro upgrades, VMBW says it has accelerated proactive infrastructure investment to support the UK’s next wave of hyperscale, edge and artificial intelligence-driven growth. VMBW also now has 177 CIN-enabled metro sites, more than 200 locations delivering accelerated 10G services, and connectivity into more than 160 datacentres nationwide.
Deployment progress now includes up to 40 days faster delivery for 10G services; 32% reduction in Ethernet lead times year-on-year. National Ethernet and 10G DIA services have been delivered over a new metro architecture since July 2024, with enhanced 10G delivery now available across approximately 75% of wholesale demand locations.
The network now connects more than 160 datacentres nationwide, spanning major Tier 1 facilities and an expanding footprint of regional and edge sites. Major deployments include diverse fibre routes and high-capacity services into Equinix’s Manchester MA5 campus, one of the UK’s most network-dense ecosystems outside London, and new connectivity at Kao Data’s Harlow campus, supporting growth across the UK Innovation Corridor.
Activity encompassed upgrading fibre across the Severn Bridge, doubling capacity to 96 fibres and enhancing connectivity between South Wales, subsea landing stations and the M4 corridor, supporting major campuses including Vantage Data Centers’s CWL1 facility near Cardiff. In major metro areas including London, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh, new ribbon fibre deployments are claimed to have increased fibre count sixfold in key corridors.
The company has also inked strategic partnerships with AtlasEdge to support pan-European edge growth and fibre connectivity into nine nLighten edge datacentre sites across the UK, supporting low-latency regional infrastructure and distributed digital growth.
The next phase of Project Spark will see continued expansion of metro capacity and five additional high-capacity fibre routes across London, alongside ongoing upgrades to meet rising regional datacentre demand. VMBW noted that as datacentre builds increasingly follow power availability and edge demand, these investments ensure capacity is already in place where new infrastructure is emerging.
“Project Spark was never about incremental upgrades,” said Diego Tedesco, executive director at Virgin Media Business Wholesale. “It’s always been focused on fundamentally redesigning how we deliver high-capacity wholesale services. We are now seeing that strategy deliver real, measurable results. Faster turn-up times, stronger resilience and a platform built to support the next decade of UK connectivity growth. In a market that increasingly values operational scale and predictability, this milestone demonstrates that our investment is working.”
Virginie Hollebecque, EMEA vice-president at Ciena, added: “Project Spark is setting new benchmarks in connectivity, supporting the UK’s digital growth in the years to come. With Ciena’s technology powering the new National High-Capacity Services core network, Virgin Media is building a high-performance, future-ready foundation to address today’s evolving service demands.”
