Analogue area

Does anyone know when/if the old cable analogue area's will be upgraded to provide broadband?

I mean it just seems crazy that at a time when Companies are installing cables in SEWERS and BT are starting FTTC, Virgin as a company are sitting on area's which have already been dug up at considerable cost and are doing nothing with!
These area's contain all the infrastructure ie. Cable ducts under the pavement to every home. Which in turn contain coax cable from the street cabinet.

Maybe I'm being ignorant here, but surely with all the above in place already, its just a case of a few weeks work to install some fibre and associated hardware, in order to upgrade these area's?!?
If Virgin can't see a business case for these area's, then why don't they sell all these cable ducts/street cabinets to someone who can!?

Depends on the area.

I used to live in Milton Keynes which (as far as I still know) is an analogue area.
The problem here is that the network is "owned" by BT. BT had to release it's interest in the network many years back and leased it to NTL...now Virgin.

Now Virgin is stuck. They won't upgrade the network as they are only leasing it and BT wont spend the cash as they wont see a decent return. Not sure if BT/Virgin have ever tried coming to an arrangement but it's the consumer that loses out.

To add insult to injury the BT phone network is in a shocking state for a new city and ADSL is not the the best there either. So much for the "city of the future" that it was once dubbed!

i very much doubt the older areas will be upgraded. I live in Leicester, LE3 postcode, 1/2 the area is digital 1/2 the area is analogue, I spoke to Ntl a few years ago, and a customer rep told me
They look at how many customers they have on a street and if they have enough they will upgrade the area to digital.

This theory doesnt really make sense, because how many people are going to pay for an analogue cable service, surely rolling out the service first, or conducting market research is a better thing to do. I am guessing these area will remain on analogue.

Like you say i hope VM sell existing analogue areas...

To make things even worse there used to be an exchange in the LE3 area, which was taken down a few years ago, now all connections are to the Monfort Exchange in town which means a line attn of 55db.

Edited by j112 (Wed 25-Mar-09 21:37:56)

I'm in Paddington London and now you cant get Virgin cable no more, only ADSL.

Ok so I have written to Virgin Media about this regarding my the Windsor/Slough analogue area. Will post their reply as soon as I receive it.

In reply to a post by veryteknical:

Ok so I have written to Virgin Media about this regarding my the Windsor/Slough analogue area. Will post their reply as soon as I receive it.

I've all but given up hope of Slough ever having a reasonable broadband infrastructure The area I live in (built in the 1980's) is limited to somewhere between 512Kb & 2Mb depending precisely which street you live down, and is also in the analogue cable area..

I suppose I should be thankful that I live at the 2Mb end of the estate, but these days that's really starting to become a pain in the neck when even game demos are multi-Gb on the 'next-gen' consoles.

I'd give my left nut for 10Mb cable.. though I suspect Virgin wouldn't be interested in that

I'd give my left nut for 2Mb line�
currently I am stuck with a 56k and I live in Bow, East london,
and it seems it will be like this till I move out.

ttfn

In reply to a post by badluckbob:

I'd give my left nut for 2Mb line�
currently I am stuck with a 56k and I live in Bow, East london,
and it seems it will be like this till I move out.

Egads, if I was still stuck on 56k I think I might have suffered a nervous breakdown by now!

If only I could afford to move while the house prices are all down.. d'oh!

Ok So there is now a lot of Virgin Media activity in the Slough/Windsor area. Men installing new cable etc. in the existing ducts.

And there has been an advert in the local 'Express' newspaper, saying that Virgin Media is comming to the area soon!!

So I guess that's it... we're finally getting upgraded to digital, years after everyone else.

Although when you call Virgin and ask about it, they ofcourse haven't got a scooby doo and just say sorry you don't live in a Digital area and there are no plans to upgrade, even though Virgin media have placed an advert in the press!

Morons