Re: Project Lightning Silence...
 

Scotland to lead the UK with Virgin Media investment in fibre broadband

http://www.virginmedia.com/corporate...broadband.html

Re: Project Lightning Silence...
 

A service tech works from the cabinet to and inside the house, the network engineer generally works in and back from the cabinet to the headend but occasionally into the house.

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Would a service tech have any reason to go to a hubsite? There's one of those behind my house and every morning about 20 Virgin Media vans drive to it! Would they all be network engineers though?

Do Virgin use contractors for the service tech role then? In other words do contractors in VM do repairs as well as installs?

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Service techs have no need to go into the headend. All the vans are most probably just network engineers meeting up before heading out to do their days work. Unless what you are referring to is a stores depot in which case everybody goes there. There are no service contractors that I'm aware of, there was some talk about it but nothing seems to have happened.

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Good, I believe repair work is best done in house.

No the building is a hubsite, I believe that's the correct term. All of cabinets in a 15 mile (maybe more) radius are connected to it.

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Slightly offtopic question, but do VM use microwave links anywhere for backhaul instead of fibre?

There's a cabled area near me that has no visible (although there could be) crossing of a road to link back to the headend (unless it does cross the road where I think it does and it's been tarmac'd over since then) - however there is network both sides of that A-road, and there is a tower (an NTL site) with a microwave dish on it (on the side further from the headend) pointing across town at another tower that is literally the other side of the road of the headend building.

I find this kind of stuff interesting for some reason.

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Very rarely,

there's some old STM-1 radio links knocking about and they are being decommissioned.

We are looking at providing rural broadband via radio. You can get 10G links around over 5km, the further the distance the lower the capacity goes.

there's a few VM test beds on this, but nothing that is ready for installation.

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If you're comparing it to BT's network then don't. Usually with their network you can see a jointbox (as we call them, you may call them manholes), on one side of the road and one on the other. The duct goes at 90 degrees to the road, directly over.

Because the cable network was built so much later they often didn't have that luxury. Up until recently here on a major road you could still see the NYNEX ducting in the road and it's all over the show, diagonal angles to cross the road, curved ducts, all sorts!

So you may be missing something completely and will never figure out how it gets over the road if it's all been resurfaced since.

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That's a fair point.

In this case, it's an A-road with quite tall grass on both sides (possibly hiding a chamber on the far side), I think I can vaguely remember an NTL van being on the headend side of the road in a specific place during the late 90s while driving past and there's actually an earthy scar there that goes over the mound away from the road between the trees if you look far back enough on street view. Through the trees on the other side of that, there is a catv chamber in the footpath with tracks leading back in the direction of the hedge by the road and also back down the footpath to town.

Although the road has been resurfaced and you can't see anything crossing it, on the other side of the road there is some kind of chamber but it's too buried with grass to see whether it's BT or CATV and it's on a busy road - no way I'm interested enough to risk walking down there.

After a run of a few metres next to the road, a vague scar (in street view going back in time) which sweeps around and up over the other embankment, right where there is ducting in a cul-de-sac the other side of the trees.

It's highly likely that it crosses the road there - but the microwave tower had me curious since it does seem to have CATV equipment there. That might just be for the mobile tower links, however. I didn't think STM-1 would have the bandwidth to carry a signal for an area with 4 - 6 nodes in it.

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attached is a list of all the communities of the Lightning Horizon.

Let me stress that these are not all going to be built, but many could be if there's enough demand for services registered on "cable my Street"

So if you live in one of these places you could get Virgin if you can drum up enough support and get your neighbours to sign up.

I apologise that the list is not in Alphabetical order, which is a bit annoying.

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How are those places decided upon (for that list)? Presumably there are other lists for previous months.

I thought VM just aggregated by postcode area but there seems to be a challenge each month, or at least it's hinted at. Do those communities receive flyers or something like that?

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I would guess that they've surveyed areas that are feasible to cable due to nearby infrastructure to come up with the shortlist.

I then imagine they'll order them by demand then do more analysis to determine the cost and likely uptake. If the numbers are right, then it's selected.

Pure speculation on my part, though.

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Oooh, lots of Wirral locations there.

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Indeed, we've discussed this before but I really hope they know how much stranded plant they have in Wirral.

They've got a NYNEX duct running up Boathouse Lane linking Neston (where they have network) to Heswall (where they don't) which should come in very handy. There's stranded plant in Meols too, and the Saughall Massie end of Upton. There's a few roads in Parkgate with ducting to the house but no cabinets. Also, that estate in Greasby where they did the PIA trial with Openreach, that has loads of ducting and cabinets.

Places like West Kirby would be much harder to do, nearest network to that would be Upton.

Bromborough isn't on the list, but that's where their hubsite (dunno if that's the correct term) is for Wirral and Ellesmere Port. There's a few big new estates that have been built there in the last 5 years, none of which have Virgin Media.

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Thank you so much for posting this list. My area (Upton Rocks in Widnes) is on the list :). Will try not to get my hopes up too much, as 'Cable My Street' is still saying 'Computer says No', but I really hope that this is a sign that Virgin Media will be heading my way sometime in the near future.

It would make sense for Virgin to expand into Upton Rocks, as their network covers properties nearby. Upton Rocks consists of a large number of homes built from the 90's onwards, probably just after one of the former cable operators cabled up most of Widnes.

After moving to Upton Rocks, I did get in touch with Virgin to ask if they would consider expanding into area. This was back in 2010, but I still have the emails. My enquiry resulted in a guy who Virgin referred to as their 'local new build officer' getting in touch with the Technical Manager at David Wilson homes. The response I received back said 'as this is a new development there may be wayleave issues affecting us gaining access for the foreseeable future.'

Since 2010, the roads and footpaths have since been adopted by the local council & Project Lightning now exists. Surely this is a good sign? Who knows, maybe my enquiry from 2010 could have helped to get Upton Rocks on the list!