Cable = Virgin?

[nath]

Quick question - does anyone know why it is that while BT have to allow others to sell services on their infrastructure Virgin don't have to with cable? My ADSL has been reet fucked up for the past few days and I suddenly thought if it's totally buggered what alternative do I have? If I move to cable I'm stuck with the God awful Virgin but why haven't Offcom or whoever forced them to sell wholesale to other resellers?

 

[Moriath]

cause bt and virgin compete so there is competition already and bt being so much bigger than virgin it is told to open its infrastructure.

why not try a llu operator they use their own hardware in the exchanges not bt's

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

heres an answer i remembered seeing ages ago, well May actually......


that answers your question......

 

[GReaper]

Remember that BT hasn't always been a public company. They effectively inherited their entire infrastructure from when it was a government owned company many years ago. If they weren't forced to let other providers use their network then they'd still be a monopoly, and would've squashed any competition.

The cable providers had to install their infrastructure from scratch, something which left most of them with plenty of debt.

 

[nath]

Presumably they could still make some money from selling it wholesale and allowing other companies to resell it, though I guess not as much or they'd be doing that already.

Shame really because their network has more potential than the copper wires that BT have but Virgin are just so fucking awful.

Still, BE aren't looking so great at the mo. I've just been told I need to wait until Tuesday for them to send me a replacement router to see if that fixes the problem, despite the fact that I've tried two separate routers already. "We can't rely on third party routers to test it properly" so I'm told.

 

[rynnor]

If I move to cable I'm stuck with the God awful Virgin but why haven't Offcom or whoever forced them to sell wholesale to other resellers?

Virgin Media are fine - why the antipathy?

 

[nath]

Speed capping, packet sniffing and getting involved with Phorm. No thank you.

 

[Moriath]

phorms been dumped by everyone hasnt it ... as to the other stuff they will all do that eventually just have to use secure connections

oh and on the 50mb service there is no capping

 

[nath]

phorms been dumped by everyone hasnt it ... as to the other stuff they will all do that eventually just have to use secure connections

oh and on the 50mb service there is no capping

Perhaps, for now. Still it gives me no faith in their service if a) they've done that sort of thing before and b) they're so willing to do that sort of crap generally speaking. TalkTalk have been pretty good about pointing out that it's not up to ISPs to police the web, though they're a shit provider in other respects.

 

[rynnor]

Perhaps, for now. Still it gives me no faith in their service if a) they've done that sort of thing before and b) they're so willing to do that sort of crap generally speaking. TalkTalk have been pretty good about pointing out that it's not up to ISPs to police the web, though they're a shit provider in other respects.

Your not marrying them tho - I'm not saying stick with them forever but might be worth a look for you - I'm just in the process of going back myself to grab a 50mb line

 

[nath]

Your not marrying them tho - I'm not saying stick with them forever but might be worth a look for you - I'm just in the process of going back myself to grab a 50mb line

Nah, I'm stubborn like that. I refuse to give them any money on principle, just as I won't buy any Sky products because of Rupert Murdoch/Fox news etc. I am that petty.

 

[Moriath]

guess you dont watch many channels on your tv then ... free view for you no cable and no sky hehe

 

[nath]

Oh man, freeview is absolutely plenty. The few times I've watched Sky or Virgin I've always flicked back to freeview channels anyway.

 

[throdgrain]

I've got Virgin media, I think it's terrible, constant loss, despite my phone calls and them saying they'll fix it.

I miss my ADSL

 

[Yaka]

back it was ntl and i first got my cm its shit 2 months till they sorted it out, not had problem since, capping is much worse now and the phorm was shit and i left for a couple of months coz of it adsl to my place far worse. so im stuck with em.

another thing that irks me about V is the tv pakage, i the hd box, but i has to have small tv package for it which means more cost while i only just watch SS and ESPN on it and the odd terrestrial prog mainly being tg/spooks/life and beeb news

 

[MYstIC G]

As I understand it because Virgin aren't everywhere and I don't think they or ofcom have ever refused anyone else the opportunity to run cable if they wanna get £X billion out of their wallet.

 

[MYstIC G]

I've got Virgin media, I think it's terrible, constant loss, despite my phone calls and them saying they'll fix it.

I miss my ADSL

Get the engineer to boost your signal and flag your line in the cabinet mate. I had this shit and that solved it every time but only the 4th engineer marked the cabinet end as "STOP FUCKING WITH THIS" so the routine maintenance guys left it alone. Was perfect after that.

 

[soze]

Whats going on with this national fiber roll out last i heard BT were refusing to foot the bill as they would just be forced to share the new network.

 

[MYstIC G]

Quite fucking right too tbh. They made BT a "business" business, so they can't now expect it to fullfill it's monopoly duties.

 

[DaGaffer]

As I understand it because Virgin aren't everywhere and I don't think they or ofcom have ever refused anyone else the opportunity to run cable if they wanna get £X billion out of their wallet.

Its actually due to the potential reach of cable. As I understand it, cable passes about 12M houses (under half of all UK houses) and if they passed a certain threshold (not sure what it is - 60%?) they would be expected to open the network because they're now the sole cable provider. One of those silly side-effects of regulation that disincentivises investment. Of course, it makes more sense for Virgin to go for the nearly 9M households that could get cable but currently don't, than expand the network further.

 

[GReaper]

Whats going on with this national fiber roll out last i heard BT were refusing to foot the bill as they would just be forced to share the new network.

Openreach is a separate group within BT, so if Openreach doesn't do fibre then BT Retail isn't going to get it. Openreach aren't going to make decisions on fibre installations based on if BT Retail gets it or not, they're going to decide based on the cost effectiveness of it - if they can recoup the money spent because there's a demand for the product.

As for the rollout, check: BT to expand footprint for UK's fastest broadband. 2.5m homes for FTTH and 10m homes for FTTC by 2012. So that could be between 40-50% of households with either FTTH or FTTC by 2012.

Maybe they're being a bit optimistic with those goals, it's hard to say. It feels like they're still taking forever for WBC/ADSL2+ services, which should reach 55% by Spring 2010 and 75% by Spring 2011 according to thinkbroadband.

 

[rynnor]

Whilst on the subject of cable a mate at work Today was on about a company running fibre optic cables for broadband through the sewers which is certainly novel - on trial in a small area at the moment - would be a real competitor for VirginMedia if its viable?

Bournemouth atmo - Bournemouth broadband laid in sewers