Upgrading the UK
PROJECT DIRECTED BY
WRITTEN BY
Liv Culling
Romana Moares
Virgin Media O2
Upgrading the UK Virgin Media O2 is combining the UK’s largest and most reliable mobile network operator with a broadband network that offers the nation’s fastest widely-available speeds.
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n December 2021, Virgin Media O2 completed the upgrade of its entire national network to gigabit speeds, delivering nearly two thirds of the Government’s broadband
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ambition four years ahead of the target date and confirming the company’s status as the UK’s largest gigabit provider. The operator completed its rollout after switching on gigabit speeds to a final 1.1 million homes for the first time, meaning all 15.5 million homes connected to Virgin Media O2’s fixed network can now access this hyper-fast connectivity. Virgin Media O2 is the only major internet service provider to have completed a gigabit upgrade programme on this scale, rolling out next-generation services to every home on its network in a little over two years without the need for lengthy construction work. This milestone solidifies Virgin Media O2’s leadership position with a gigabit network that is more than twice the size of its nearest competitor.
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Telecommunications Feature True partnerships Nick Good, Virgin Media O2’s Head of Operational Performance spoke to Business Enquirer about the latest developments in the company, and how it plans, together with its partners, to further improve services for the nation. He himself has been with the company for 12 years, holding a number of different positions, including managing business intelligence continuous improvement, performance management, partner management and strategy/planning teams, as well as leading teams to assess how to develop technology to better suit the business and its customers. He has witnessed first-hand the business transformation under various structures, including the most recent milestone - Virgin Media’s joint venture with O2 which launched in June 2021. Now, as Head of Operational Performance, he is responsible for five key strategic partnerships. “Our cable, voice and power systems are all supported by third parties, such as Connect44, ISS and Ericsson. Ultimately, my team is responsible for the performance of these partner services, plus the engagement to make sure that we treat our partners as an extension of Virgin Media O2. It’s really important that we capitalise on the working relationships that we have as true partnerships with our partner community.”
the importance of developing accountability. “I have been fortunate that members of my internal team are experts in their part of the network, with the required technical skills and extensive experience.” “I like to make sure that my team develops in the areas where they want and need to, as that is ultimately how I can empower them to do their job correctly - to look after our partners’ teams. Not only in terms of managing the relationships but, in some cases, having the responsibility for the actual end-to-end service. That takes a lot of accountability. Similarly, this is the approach they take towards the external partners they manage.” He points out that over the last two and a half years it has become clear that when engagement is established and partners are treated as an extension of Virgin Media O2, performance across all of the partners’ KPIs rises significantly. Virgin Media engineers in the field
A good example of this approach is the partnership with Connect44, a market leader in Europe around network operations with strong focus on service management and service assurance. The company has been a partner to both Virgin Media and O2 for many years, and the new joint venture will benefit from Connect44 delivering smart and unified services across both sides of the business bringing simplicity and cost reduction whilst delivering smarter automated services to Virgin Media O2’s network. Asked about his specific management style, in getting the best out of his people, he highlights
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Telecommunications Feature
Virgin Media O2
New leader in the UK Virgin Media O2 is relatively young. The company was formed in June 2021 as a 50:50 joint venture between Liberty Global and Telefónica combining their respective Virgin Media and O2 UK businesses. It is now one of the largest entertainment and telecommunications operators in the United Kingdom, serving around 47 million connections in 2021 across broadband, mobile, TV and home phone, and still growing. The teams are still settling down into their working patterns, says Nick Good, but the benefits of joining forces are clear. “The joint venture has brought together two large players in the UK market, Virgin Media from the cable side and O2 from the mobile side, to provide a truly comprehensive offering in the UK market: broadband, mobile, TV and fixed line voice.”
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The joint venture has brought together two large players ... to provide a truly comprehensive offering in the UK market: broadband, mobile, TV and fixed line voice
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In December, the company introduced ’Volt’– its first ever joint product, to give customers even more from their services – more speed, more data and better value. How? Simply by being customers of both brands. Volt offers double the broadband speed, double the mobile data and discounts on connected devices when customers have or choose to take a broadband service from Virgin Media and a Pay Monthly plan from O2. “The new joint offering came just a few months after the launch of Virgin Media O2, building on the company’s gigabit rollout momentum and at a time when 5G coverage from O2 was expanded to 210 locations. We are proud of that achievement, accomplished in a very short period of time, to bring real value to the end-consumer.” says Nick Good.
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Connect44 are a managed services partner and system Integrator founded over 20 years ago in Lucerne, Switzerland and today we’re a dynamic team of 1000 operating in 9 Countries across Europe. Our largest operation is in the UK where we have 300 employees who manage and support various leading Telco vendors and carriers. The company founders still lead the business which enables decision making and service delivery to remain focused and agile. Across the Connect44 group we have the full range of competencies to support our clients as they design and build their networks, but we consider ourselves to be market leaders in Europe around network operations with strong focus on service management and service assurance which we provide together with our “best in class” NOCs in the UK, Romania and far shore. Our key capabilities around network operations include: •
Proven technology management expertise of mobile and fixed networks across Europe with pragmatic automation, focused on where it adds value.
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Vendor-agnostic Fixed-Mobile-IT Operations Centre capability across RAN, Transmission, Core networks, OSS, IT infrastructure and services.
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Multiple NOC’s operating in UK and across Europe provide 24/7 front office and service desk with vendor agnostic back office.
es today to restrict our clients and technologies such as 5G and edge bring new opportunities to us all to expand new services to our Enterprise clients and businesses.
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Strong experience is Change, Incident and Problem management functions with Best-in-Class network security underpinning all activity and support.
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ITIL based, ISO 27001, ISO9001 and InfoSec compliant.
As a business we like many strive to establish greener ways to deliver services, not just to reduce our own carbon footprint but also to invest in new technologies to reduce emissions through smarter working. One such area is the introduction of the Connect44 Drone and Digital Twin division which enables us to dramatically reduce physical presence of multiple teams to survey and build accurate digital views of our client’s estates whether that be a Telco Cell site, transport infrastructure or any physical infrastructure. Our Drone fleet are merely vehicles to collect data over pre-determined flight plans, the key here is our software and innovative approach to algorithms and AI embedded in our solution to deliver an outstanding view of the landscape and client’s assets whilst reducing cost and complexity.
Our NOC teams provide the centre piece of our network operations, with over 250 personnel across multiple NOC’s in Europe and the capability to scale at pace. We believe strongly in the provision of automation and have integrated the C44 vendor agnostic automation engine into our services, with RPA for repetitive task action and single pane of glass to integrate cross technology NEMS and performance data feeds. Partnerships are key to our business, Connect44 have thrived by building strong relationships with our clients, understanding their business, challenges and together building better networks. We’re proud that Virgin Media and O2 have been key partners of ours for many years, in the case of O2 our collaboration stretches back 18 years and we have delivered services into many areas of their network with over 200 colleagues today dedicated to their business. Our Virgin Media relationship has also grown with new teams added to their networks support this year. We were delighted to see the joint venture last year between the two creating a formidable force in the UK market and see our future with them delivering smart and unified services across both sides of the business bringing simplicity and cost reduction whilst delivering smarter automated services to Virgin Media O2’s network.
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Offshore costs and flexibility with On-shore expertise and market understanding.
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Company structure which enables a flexible and agile approach compared to some larger competitors.
Connect44 prides itself on 3 key areas, speed, simplicity, and trust where we treat our clients’ networks as if they were our own with pride in delivering great service and innovation in line with the market we serve.
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Strong 24/7 performance culture, proactive service ownership, accountability and focused on delivering best service and overall customer experience.
Today the markets we address are growing, our clients are looking to Connect44 to deliver broader services as they use their own technology to diversify into the Telco and Enterprise marketplace. There are fewer boundari-
Renewable energy solutions developed in cooperation with Clients and our Green Centre of Excellence in Denmark introduced Wind and Solar technologies to significantly reduce our client’s dependence on grid usage especially around connected site Infrastructure for 5G densification in rural areas. We have also invested heavily in our Charger NOC Mobility division to support Europe’s growth in electric vehicle charging networks making good networks great with 24/7 monitoring and support to improve quality of services their users deserve and to enhance market confidence to support its growth. Overall Connect44 are obsessed with being a responsible partner to our European clients, both in what and how we deliver services with Speed, simplicity and trust.
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Virgin Media O2 Supercharged by the pandemic In December, a new analysis released by Virgin Media O2 revealed the impact of another pandemic year on the nation’s connectivity habits across mobile, broadband and TV networks. Virgin Media O2 saw its biggest ever year for data use on both broadband and mobile networks, as more people than ever went online to chat, stream, share and game. In 2021, customers downloaded 19% more broadband data than the previous year, with mobile traffic up 45% year-on-year. “Not only had demand increased but the criticality of that demand had skyrocketed,” says Nick Good. “Ultimately, our services have to support people in all of their working, educational and entertainment requirements; Virgin Media also provides services to the NHS, police forces around the UK and other critically important stakeholders. Although Virgin Media is used to operating in a highly competitive and rapidly shifting market, and is consequently used to having to respond to external influences, Covid presented a very different experience for us in terms of our ability to react. However, as a business we stepped up for our customers and have been working hard to meet that demand and keep the country connected.” Virgin Media engineer at work
Vehicle in new Virgin O2 livery
The right mix He further points out that there is a lot of happening in the industry right now. Capitalising on 5G capability will stretch across the next few years and demands on communication will further increase. “We’re committed to bringing 5G to over half of the UK’s population in 2023 and have already started to deploy our low-band spectrum to strengthen the experience of our network across the country and especially indoors. We’ve just added Samsung into our diverse portfolio of network vendors and also recently announced that we’re working with Ericsson to build our 5G standalone core network.” Internally, the young joint venture is set to foster its internal team partnerships and enable its staff to provide the best service to end-customers. As mentioned before, external partnerships are an integral part of that journey. “We try to get everyone engaged as one community. Our external partners need to feel like part of Virgin Media O2, and our people need to feel like part of their team.” “For me personally, the goal is to make sure that we optimise the partner community within our new joint venture, to understand the right mix and the right services. To have the right partners that deliver the right service is what will move us forward, to the ultimate satisfaction of our customers,” concludes Nick Good. www.virginmediao2.co.uk
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Issue 104 · Business Enquirer Magazine
Issue 104 · Business Enquirer Magazine
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Virgin O2 + www.virginmediao2.co.uk
info@busenq.com www.busenq.com