Liberty Global is accelerating the launch of Gigabit broadband speeds across Switzerland, Brussels and Flanders in Belgium, as well as the UK.

Virgin Media in the UK, Telenet in Belgium and UPC Switzerland – part of Liberty Global – are offering Gigabit broadband speeds. Liberty Global has already announced 12 GigaCity deployments in Poland and three in Slovakia earlier this year.

Virgin Media is bringing high-speed broadband to Southampton, making it the first city in the UK where Virgin customers can access 1 Gigabit speeds.

Last week, Telenet, Liberty Global’s consumer brand in Belgium, launched Gigabit speeds across Flanders and Brussels, expanding the network to more than 3 million connectable houses and businesses in the region.

UPC Switzerland, Liberty Global’s Swiss operating company, also launched 1 Gigabit speeds across its entire footprint last week, both in cities and rural areas. More than 75 percent of all Swiss households can benefit from the deployment.

“Our GigaCity rollouts show that we are the speed leader, but that’s just the start – security, reliability and privacy are just as important as fast broadband,” Mike Fries, CEO, and Liberty Global, said.

Liberty Global has made Gigabit connections available in 12 Polish cities, including Warsaw, Krakow and Gdansk, and three cities in Slovakia.

The innovation by the availability of Gigabit speeds are estimated to deliver between €250-660 billion of economic value per year in Europe by 2025, according to research from Arthur D. Little.