Cable Forum broke the story via a post in our forum on 2 October after tip-offs from a number of sources. The company was being cagey about its plans at the time; there was no official statement and the only way to check that something had changed was to try to order Virgin National Broadband from the company’s own website.

Any attempt to run a postcode area coverage check from that website resulted in users being diverted to a price comparison website, rather than being offered a package as before.

But at the end of the week the company finally started issuing statements confirming its decision to stop selling ADSL broadband to both new customers and to existing Virgin customers who were moving home from a cabled to a non cabled area.

In two separate statements, it told ISPReview.com: “From the 1st of October we’re no longer selling National Broadband to new or existing customers who move to an area outside our cable network. As a company, we’ve decided to focus on developing services on our next generation cable network.”

And: “As the fastest broadband company for the majority of the UK, Virgin Media customers expect incredible speeds. Unfortunately the ADSL technology, which is still used by three quarters of British consumers and supports our National service, cannot provide comparable connectivity to our own cable network. We will continue to serve our existing National customers but we’ve chosen to stop selling it to new customers.”