This will hugely vary based on where you were living at that time - I worked for a UK ISP in the early to late 2000s and can't agree with this description of th

This will hugely vary based on where you were living at that time - I worked for a UK ISP in the early to late 2000s and can't agree with this description of the UK as a whole. Virgin's coverage has never really been close to "nation wide" either. Even today, Virgin Media's DOCIS network only reaches about half the premises in the country. It was far less in the early 2000s! Virgin also only acquired the Telewest cable network in 2006 and didn't rebrand it Virgin Media till 2007.