WINTER PARK, Florida, March 12 /PRNewswire/ --

- Leveraging Highwinds' content delivery network, Virgin Media will provide lightning-fast access to newsgroup forums on thousands of topics

Highwinds Network Group, Inc., a multi-platform IP services and content distribution provider, today announced that its RollingThunder(TM) content delivery network has been selected by Virgin Media Inc., as the CDN infrastructure for Virgin Media's newly enhanced and expanded newsgroup service. Under an IP infrastructure hosting agreement, UK-based Virgin Media will tap the high-performance worldwide Highwinds CDN to provide lightning-fast, anytime anywhere access to its newsgroup forums covering thousands of topics.

Leveraging Virgin Media's dedicated high-speed link connecting to the Highwinds CDN, Internet users will be able to take advantage of important new features available in the Virgin newsgroup service. These include extended 90-day retention of text articles and 7-day minimum retention of binaries, as well as a full news feed covering thousands of groups.

Virgin Media's revamped newsgroup service will be available Spring 2008.

"We're delighted to be working with Highwinds to build out our newsgroup service. Our expanded access to newsgroups will give our customers a free news feed to newsgroups with exceptional retention, providing one of the best free newsgroup services in the UK," said Alex Brown, senior product manager at Virgin Media.

"We at Highwinds are excited to be partnering with Virgin Media to improve the content delivery experience of their newsgroup subscribers," said Robb Barkley, VP Corporate Communications at Highwinds. "Our massive CDN with points of presence worldwide will play a key role in enabling Virgin Media to implement their advanced newsgroup service with greatly enhanced article retention, access speeds and availability."

About Virgin Media

Virgin Media is an innovative and pioneering UK entertainment and communications business. For the first time consumers can get everything they need from one company -- the UK's only quad play of TV, broadband, phone and mobile plus the most advanced TV on demand service available, the UK's first high definition TV service and V+, a high specification personal video recorder. Virgin Media is the UK's largest residential broadband provider, the largest virtual mobile network operator and the second largest provider of pay TV and home phone.

Virgin Media owns two content businesses -- Virgin Media Television (VMTV) and sit-up. VMTV owns seven entertainment channels -- Virgin1, Living, Living 2, Bravo, Bravo 2, Challenge, and Trouble -- and is a 50% partner in UKTV which consists of nine channels including Dave, UKTV Gold and UKTV History. sit-up runs retail TV channels bid tv, price-drop tv and speed auctiontv.

Virgin Media is the largest Virgin company in the world and has almost 10 million customers. To find out more, visit www.virginmedia.com/presscentre .

About Highwinds Network Group, Inc.

Highwinds has been a leader in the development of content replication and delivery software and services since 2002. This experience has led to a number of technology innovations in network management, distributed file system technology and advanced content routing methods. The Highwinds CDN leverages best-in-class hardware and software to quickly and successfully move content at a global level. The company's high-performance RollingThunder(TM) network and user-friendly StrikeTracker(TM) content management and reporting dashboard enable clients to deploy and manage content, file downloads and streaming media. Highwinds is headquartered in Winter Park, Fla., and maintains data centers in 13 North American and European cities. For more information, visit www.highwinds.com .

RollingThunder and StrikeTracker are trademarks of Highwinds Network Group, Inc.

Web site: http://www.highwinds.com http://www.virginmedia.com/presscentre

Media, Wynne Ahern of Commstrat, office, +1-510-658-8870 or +1-510-206-2161, wynne@commstrat.net; or Asam Ahmad, Virgin Media, +44-207-909-2122, or +44-7956-570-075, asam.ahmad@virginmedia.co.uk; or Highwinds Network Group, Inc., +1-866-668-7119