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The cable company tested Nortel's 40G infrastructure on 350km of its 10G national network between Manchester and London. The success of the trial means that Virgin can now deploy technology that will enable it to carry much greater volumes of internet traffic.

Key to the introduction of 40G is that it operates within the existing 10Gb/sec infrastructure, minimising the cost of installation.

"Our strategic suppliers have demonstrated

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very clearly how existing network assets can be scaled to meet the growth in demand associated with evolving customer behaviour and step changes in the products provided as part of our high-speed broadband proposition,"said Daniel Hennessy, director of Technical Architecture, Virgin Media. "Our optical network will provide a solid foundation for growth as it takes advantage of technology designed to avoid electrical regeneration and where possible reduce the incremental cost of scaling transport capacity."

Virgin, which already offers 20Mb/sec broadband connections, has already said that it will be able to offer 50Mb to nine million homes by the end of the year, putting BT's 21CN efforts to shame. The 40G backbone should make it easier to deliver on that promise.

[photo by PPDigital]