Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

I'm pretty much certain that BTW would be happy to sell VM as much capacity as they cared to pay for. If the service was congested blame Virgin National for not buying enough capacity.

Re: Bye Bye Virgin National
 

Virgin don't charge the full cost, they charge as set out here http://store.virginmedia.com/the-leg...tion-fees.html , which does comply with OFCOM's rules as published here 3 years ago http://consumers.ofcom.org.uk/2010/0...one-contracts/

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

Cheers,

I've no plans to move just interested.

I guess now they have more money for their network? The money from the sky deal will help?

Re: Bye Bye Virgin National
 

Incorrect, the "fibre project" as it was called was fully fined and well under way with many exchanges fibred to and kit installed.

The whole project was then cancelled out of the blue, and the kit that was installed started to be removed.

This all happened exactly at the same time the BT Sport deal was announced. Make of that what you will.............

---------- Post added at 20:17 ---------- Previous post was at 20:12 ----------

That was also the original VM model, and has been successful so far.

A modest amount of homes (around 50,000) are added on-net each year nationally.

I don't know if Liberty intend to increase that number, it's very expensive so I would doubt it.

However, Liberty need to grow and maximise their European operations to the level that VM are operating at.

Re: Bye Bye Virgin National
 

I think you need to do some research on what FTTC means...

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

Correct, came as a surprise to everyone involved. But like I say announced the same time as the BT Sport deal, so either they needed the cash to fund the BT deal, or as part of the negotiations they agreed not to compete with BT off-net, either or both.

---------- Post added at 20:22 ---------- Previous post was at 20:21 ----------

Nope, you're wrong.

---------- Post added at 20:27 ---------- Previous post was at 20:22 ----------

I hate it when dealing with people on here who think they know about VM and the industry when they don't.

The project for providing VM services over the BT FTTC network involved VM connecting their own fibre to all of BT's exchanges thereby backhauling all of the traffic on their own fibre directly into their own Core Network.

Unlike other FTTC providers that don't have the fibre reach that have to pay BT or other carrier to backhaul their traffics.

I think it is you that needs to do some research.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

I wonder if VM could then undercut BT and provide other ISP's exchange backhaul. That would be an amusing scenario.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

They already do to some level, it's a matter of degrees, and VM fill in a lot of holes for other providers.

They already provide backhaul of varying levels for Sky, Talk Talk, plus all the mobile operators.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

I won't argue with Pierre because he's much closer to events than most of us.

I fuind the cash reason more plausible than the non-compete negotiation. BT Sport AFAIK is not part of BT Openreach nor part of BT Wholesale. Because of the enforced arm's length relationship between those entities and BT Retail, I would question that BT would throw that into a negotiation.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

I don't know anything about VM but I do know that the only provider of the "last mile" section of FTTC is Openreach. OK so VM had planned to install some backhaul and have now scrapped that plan but they had no absolute need to do so to provide FTTC as there are several options for backhaul already in place - they were already using backhaul from the exchanges for their ADSL offering.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

Evident.

Yes?
They were thinking a bit bigger than just FTTC. By having their own kit and own fibre they are able to freely control what services they provide. They were not just going to provide broadband off- net.

But maybe they should get you in as a business consultant.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

They aren't going to expand the cable network, because if you are going to the extent of digging up roads it makes much more sense to stick FTTP in there instead.

But given thats true, it would make even more sense for them to do FTTP to the denser areas they already cover with cable, as there is a larger customer footprint to target.

Given that, are a sufficient number of the customers that currently get cable in those areas likely to want to pay enough extra for FTTP, to justify the cost? No chance.

Hence, we are where we are. All told its a pretty crap position to VM to be in, although DOCSIS 3.1 may be a saviour.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

You could be correct but then again could be wrong, who knows?

---------- Post added at 22:19 ---------- Previous post was at 22:12 ----------

They will be putting the fibre nodes closer to the home in the cabinets, so you will have fibre to the cabinet still but closer and serving the customers within that cabinet.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

Ofcom does not allow any section of BT to favour another section over and above any other ISP so they would have the same ability to purchase capacity as any other ISP. If they didn't provide sufficient capacity then it was penny pinching and not some BT conspiracy to make them look bad.

Re: Virgin National closes to new customers
 

Thanks BTW, I did announce this a couple of months ago.

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/12...ic-page-5.html