BDUK funding for Virgin Media Areas

Hi All,

If an area is partly covered by Virgin Media and BDUK funding is gained to upgrade the cabinet for those not covered. Is it valid for people that have VM to then gain access to the BDUK funded superfast products?
I thought the the EU wouldn't allow people get another superfast implementation if one already existed.

Thanks
Satpal

It's overspill and is allowed. BT can't claim to cover them in the contract but once the cab is installed anyone on it can order products. Overspill needs to be managed but is accepted as an inevitable consequence of the network topology.

The money paid to BT as gap funding should be adjusted accordingly to reflect that x% are within a commercial area.

If I'm right it would go something similar to this

BT Cab serves 500 and 400 can get VM then no funding would be allocated but maybe if BT Cab server 500 and VM supplied service to 100 then more than likely would be allowed funding...

The confusion though is when I lived in Birmingham, I was connected to a exchange (CMKING) but it is still not planned for Fibre.. however neighbouring exchanges or even nearly the whole city has now been activated or are soon to go live...

While that area was covered by Virgin Media (90%) so was other areas... so very confusing system...

I was also informed by a local superfast program that the funding for my area went to Virgin Media (disappointing)

Might also be that the exchange covered a lot of businesses and an industrial estate so the loss of revenue on leased lines might have also been an influence on the decision but still remains unknown..

Maybe just 1 cab on CMKING due to be done under BDUK, maybe due to Virgin presence

This cab you speak of... any ideas where its located as it might be under the CSW superfast rollout...

I believe that CMKING does serve across county borders!

The simple answer is that *some* overlap is allowed. The EU rules seem to allow it, and BDUK allows it.

However, the real answer is much, much, more complicated.

First, the EU rules specify that subsidies cannot be used to supply an "area" that already has service (ie grey or black areas). But they don't specify that subsidy cannot be used to supply a "white area" when such supply also happens to overspill into supplied areas. This makes for a hole in the rules.

So ... some LA's have interpreted the EU rule very strictly, so don't allow overlap. Others have been more flexible.

Second, the rules just talk about "area" when discussing overlap. In some places, "area" gets deliberately treated as a postcode area - especially when mapping. In other places, it is more suitable to talk about the cabinet coverage area. Such confusion between "area" makes it easier for "strict" LA's to be even more immovable.

Third, central BDUK have (seemingly more recently) specified that "white areas" need to include a substantial majority of VM coverage before they would be turned into a "grey area". It seems that this "significant majority" is being interpreted as 90% - so BT would not be allowed to cover "an area" (with subsidies) if 90% of it has VM service.

Fourth, once the LA's have encapsulated the individual "area" within the definition of the total intervention area, they have proven to have little flexibility to alter it ... at least in phase 1. Some areas have realised this problem, and are making the definition more malleable for the phase 2 SEP.

That means that LA's that want to be more flexible probably can't be until phase 2 - so long as they have gone through a new OMR.

It also means that strict LA's have to be first persuaded that they can be more lax, and then persuaded to include these new rules in their phase 2 OMRs.

I wrote a whole lot more over over in this thread, but it is a little wordy and confusing.

Thanks for all you answers. I understand the situation better.

Satpal

In reply to a post by mlmclaren:

I was also informed by a local superfast program that the funding for my area went to Virgin Media (disappointing)

That would be a first.

When did VM make their network accessible via wholesale?

well they never have... I didn't realise this had anything to do with it though I do agree its unfair!