In reply to a post by GMAN98:

Registering might be a start?

At the risk of going OT: I used to post on here regularly, but stopped because

1. I came to feel that this forum is generally for xDSL users, perhaps because of its heritage (ThinkADSL) for whom it does a truly excellent job, but xDSL isn't something I have any interest in since it has never been any use (available) to me in the past except once (long lines, poor quality lines, useless speeds - all but one perfectly normal buillt up urban areas, not in the middle of nowhere)

2. Witnessing the farcical and patchy rollout of FTTC in the two towns nearest me persuaded me that BT will continue to be as irrelevant to my broadband needs for the next decade as it has been for the last (I'm about to sign a contract for an office 15 miles away which is the nearest office I can locate with access to part fibre-broadband, hence my interest in this thread - I really shouldn't need to do that in 2011)

3. This I can relate to having run a number of online clubs in the past - the audience is probably towards the younger age range which leads to "disciples" of various ISPs "bitching" and a general level of rudeness on here which you wouldn't get in public nor do you get on other forums.

This thread interested me enough to post. Back on topic:

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

I'm all for improving BB across the UK but by businesses that want to actually build it, not come in a poach off others.

I can see plenty of xDSL ISPs who are happy to sit in the space behind BT's network and who have no interest in doing infrastructure, not that they could afford it, but you also have the "negative predatory competition" aspect discussed previously so when a provider does finally provide a solution to an area previously described as not commercially viable by BT, suddenly, it becomes commercially viable.

I can also see some major ISPs happy to hide behind BT's network so they don't have to offer up much bandwidth per customer.

Overall, however, I agree. Whether "Bob" is right or not in his assertion about those meetings, it would be great if they were taking place, we might get somewhere.

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

Everyone charging more for BB in the first place might get some proper investment going

How would we force BT OR to channel additional income; what degree of control can we exert? Or, would you propose additional charges for broadband which go into a pot for a new network to be built, for instance; how do you think we can progress?

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

You wouldn't need to use VM's cable network, just its ducting. Why would you use a inferior DOCSIS network when you could put in your our FTTH

who's going to just rent ducting and put in their own cables tho? no one seems interested in that. Which I am not surprised given how over competitive the retail market is. I think a bigger problem now is fixing the reasons that make investment limited and that is the cheap broadband problem.

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

In what respect? BT are already rolling out FTTC/FTTP now, they are putting in more fibre than any other country in the world out of their own pockets.

Why don't Virgin just cover the other 50% of the country, no reliance on BT then.

figures to back this claim up? We have one of the worst FTTx coverage in the developed world. Especially FTTP.

VM's FTTC coverage is signficantly larger than BT's. It also covers more city areas rather than going after farmers and the like.

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

While we are on the subject of upload speed, there has been nothing stopping Virgin from (and now) offering much greater uploads speeds, better than anything BT do at the moment.

In fact there has been nothing stopping them from offering 100Mbps download for many many many years, so.... don't just look at BT when it comes to lack of broadband progression when all Virgin needed to do was open the taps up and put better CPE on the end

And if they had done that 10yrs ago that might have pushed BT to pull its finger out....

Do you look into what you typing before you type?

Do you really think all VM had to do was push out new config files and new modem's to end users to upgrade speeds and thats it job done?

Bit of research into docsis tech will also give you the answer on upload speeds.

In reply to a post by Anonymous:

In reply to a post by GMAN98:

While we are on the subject of upload speed, there has been nothing stopping Virgin from (and now) offering much greater uploads speeds, better than anything BT do at the moment.

In fact there has been nothing stopping them from offering 100Mbps download for many many many years, so.... don't just look at BT when it comes to lack of broadband progression when all Virgin needed to do was open the taps up and put better CPE on the end

And if they had done that 10yrs ago that might have pushed BT to pull its finger out....

Upload speeds on domestic broadband connections have never been as much of a selling point as download speeds and this remains so. BT is ahead of the game here, but I'm not convinced the demand is there yet. As you say, though, Virgin could respond reasonably quickly.

BT's "definition" of broadband is an ADSL capable line, that is to say, 135kbps downstream. VM's "definition" is 10Mbps. I can't see how BT is in the same league, or what Virgin Media have "held back on".

Innovation is generally created by private companies who have to attract customers and who have something to lose, not by privatised monopolies who have nothing to lose while the line rental keeps rolling in.

great point.

to magnify it.

someone with a fault on adsl will likely not have it treated as a low speed fault if nfaster than 400kbit/sec.
same on cable will likely have a much higher threshold, VM can be extremely slow at fixing faults but they will at least treat it as a fault. They are also miles apart in terms of local loop faults, VM can send techs out within 72 hours free of charge, no silly threats of £100+ fees if router even looks wrong, openreach had to start threatening customers so they can claim faults are down.

I know exactly what DOCSIS is and the flavours it comes in, I'm saying in they could have done what they have done now a long time ago. The cabling was already in place.

Who would want to use Virgin's own networks especially when its congested in that area (out on the street) in many areas.

Of course ISP's want to put in their own cables why do you think there's such a fuss from Virgin/Talk Talk about BT's duct rental pricing?

In reply to a post by MHC:

In reply to a post by mrnelster:

In reply to a post by MHC:

Please can I have half of your garden? I know you have paid for it, but as you are not using it for growing profitable crops, I would like to take it over and use it to cultivate my own crop of cannabis plants.

Yeah man! Lol!

Can you explain your reply?

You seem to want a company to surrender its assets - but cannot see the analogy to surrendering YOUR property because someone else wants to use it in a different way.

Leave the local loop with BT and if other want to install their own then let them with EXACTLY the same conditions and oblkigations. BT should not be forced to allow others to use their network at below cost.

I don't believe you are stupid, so you have either quoted mistakenly or are just trying to get your fair share of the confrontational attitude that appears to be running through this thread?

Much of the problem with the CAble network lies with the poor decisions made many years ago when the UK was split into a large number of small franchise areas. To compount it no real technical specification was laid down so almost every Cable franchise used a different system . These small franchise never made any money and slowly they merged into larger franchise but where still stuck with the different systems and of cause had different call centres & accounts systems etc. Slowly these issues were tackled but was a slow and expensive business. Eventually in the later days the UK Cable network was pretty much al owned by NTL but it was still loosing money..Eventually the network was sold to Virgin Media who continued the consolidation of the network as well as upgrading to higher speeds. They have now turned the loss into a profit but still have a high level of debt.

Virgin understand that it is critical to the business to expand their network particularly as HS Broadbad will become a key product in a few years. Their preferred option is to use the BT ducting wherever possible because it is not realy sensible now to have two parallel networks but if need be that is a road they will go down.

If you look at the economics of doing that it is pretty expensive when the dominant operator is already in the marketplace. If we say Virgin currently serves 20% of homes where its cable passes thats quite expensive to do.

If though they form a consortium then you have the combined sales & marketing forces of all these companies and their existing customer base to sell to which makes the sums more attractive. What the consortium would be doing would be repackaging reselling the Virgin Media product. This sort of set up means that the Virgin Media Network would be able to get EU & government funding which is almost impossible with the current clossed network

The business case is still being developed to ensure the ROI would be sufficient. They would also like to see if the regulator could prevent preditory behaviour by BT

ie the new consortium identify an area where there is demand but BT do not want to know so they roll out into that area only to find BT suddenly decide they will provided FTTH in that area.

What they want is exclusive access to that area for a period of time to allow them to reccover their investment maybe say 3 years

In terms of pricing what I was getting at was, we are turning a corner now in terms of speeds, a corner Virgin turned a while back but there is no increase in pricing, you can get FTTC products for virtually the same if not exactly the same price as regular ADSL.

That can't be good for investment