How has the strength of the Electronic Communications Code been tested by the dispute between Virgin Media and Durham County Council? Brian Wake offers his view*
Virgin Media and Durham County Council have reached an amicable agreement on land access terms, allowing work to resume on the network expansion in the county.
The agreement was reached prior to the case being heard by the Upper Tribunal (Lands Chamber), meaning that the UK provider will have to pay only £1 for land access to the areas which were under dispute.
More than 7,000 homes and businesses in Sunderland, the UK, will be next to access Virgin Media’s ultrafast broadband as the provider expands its network under the ‘Project Lightning’ programme, which aims to provide speeds up to 362Mb/s in the region.
Virgin Media is taking legal action against Durham County Council, for what the provider calls a ‘blockade’ on its delivery of ultrafast broadband by asking for increased payments to access the land upon which it hoped to increase its network by laying new fibre optic cable.
The partnership with Durham, which was announced at the end of last year, had been put in place with the aim of extending the provider’s high-speed network to around 16,000 properties in Durham by the end of 2019. Virgin Media said that this would benefit the area by increasing speeds to 350Mb/s.
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