Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Why would they do that? You are still renting a landline from Virgin Media, it's just the technology that delivers it is different.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

They aren't going to do away with line rental - no-one else has :)

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Well then they're missing a potentially huge selling point. The fact that you don't need a landline is a huge USP that Virgin takes almost no advantage of.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Probably because everyone else who sells bundles hides some of the cost of the broadband in the line rental, hence they're able to sell the broadband at a lower headline cost.

VM do the same thing, which is why the cost of broadband and line rental taken as a bundle is lower than the cost of both added together separately.

Broadband a la carte 152Mb = £41/month, 12 month contract.
Broadband + phone = £20/month for 12 months then £30/month for 6 months + line rental @ £16.99/month, 18 month contract.

Total cost averaged:

Broadband a la carte: £41/month.

Broadband + phone: £36.99/month for 12 months, £46.99/month for 6 months = £40.32/month over course of contract.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Given they're already "taking almost no advantage of" it now why would you suspect them to change?

---------- Post added at 14:59 ---------- Previous post was at 14:57 ----------

Indeed, hence I had a laugh with the installers a few years ago when we had a broken phone line at installation, I couldn't care less that it didn't work as I only took the phone line bundle because it was cheaper than broadband alone. At that time there was an additional £50 bill credit for the bundle on top of the introductory line rental discount, making the difference even bigger than your example above.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Use line rental saver you can bring down the line rental for the first year to £13.67/month, making the cost differential between the two even larger. £33.67 for the first 12 months.

VM want people using their phone lines, and they want to be able to stop paying BT Wholesale to maintain bits of their telco network. They also want to stop having to install what are basically FTTC cabinets, but handling just telco.

They can also get in the raw coax more cheaply when they aren't ordering a siamese with copper pairs attached for the drops, and build the networks more cheaply as there's no need to mess with twisted pair alongside the coax / fibre in the case of pure FTTP rollouts.

No brainer to VM going VoIP now that they are planning a substantial build.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

That's exactly my point. They can charge a hell of a lot less for line rental, hell they can bundle the phone for next to nothing, essentially, and still undercut on a lot of broadband packages.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Pricing won't change that much, they will want to see a return on the investment. The network I work on is using ancient PDH kit, so hard to get spares

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

I know many people who either are not able to or chose not to. JSA isn't that much for a single person.

Not that I'm defending them.

---------- Post added at 18:07 ---------- Previous post was at 18:04 ----------

There's no chance VM or any other ISP will get rid of a cash cow!

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

There's a lot of hate for jobseekers on this forum. Not everyone on JSA wants to be on JSA, I can assure you that the Job Centre may well be twinned with the 7th circle of hell.

Of course not, but if dropping the price of line rental by half means twice as many customers, making twice as many phone calls, then that's something.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Perhaps I should point out the pessimistic view taht most businesses are keen to put prices up when costs go up and rarely put prices down when costs go down.

---------- Post added at 18:31 ---------- Previous post was at 18:29 ----------

I quit JSA because I could no longer be bothered with the inane and demeaning mass of hoops they make you jump through every week just to get what you're legally entitled to get already.

---------- Post added at 18:31 ---------- Previous post was at 18:31 ----------

I severely doubt there's an inverse linear relationship between price and uptake.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

Very true, but most businesses will want to go for what gains the most profit and more customers paying slightly less may well be more profitable.

I'd love to see what the price elasticity of broadband actually is. I suspect price plays a major role, though and Virgin could well hit the sweet spot of offering a genuinely better service at a lower price than the competition can.

They're a shower of ***** :D

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

I don't know of a single person without access to either a mobile or home phone. Not 1

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

The voice over cable is progressing very steadily, and slowley. There's no rush VM's geriatric voice network is the company's biggest cash cow.

It brings in billions and cost a few hundred thousand to maintain.

It's also a fact that the vast majority of field faults are on the HFC network.

So VoC will arrive, but there's no stampeding effort to get it here quickly.

Re: Next DOCSIS 3 modem - these okay?
 

And I know many that have a PAYG phone with no credit on it most of the time.