Originally Posted by MrIca (Post 35835583)

Well all the vans I'm seeing a Virgin Media direct labour, not contractors.

Originally Posted by Pierre (Post 35835590)

How do you know, in many instances they use the exact same vans.

Originally Posted by MrIca (Post 35835533)

Thanks, good solid facts as ever. Raises a question though, why do they have so many hubsites now then if they can serve 160km? In my area for instance they've got one in Bromborough which seems to serve about 10 miles on every direction and then also some kind of smaller switching site in Birkenhead a few miles down the road.

I'm assuming they've also got a few in Liverpool and Warrington.

Originally Posted by MrIca (Post 35835553)

I still don't understand what the engineers do in the hubsites though. I see dozens going in and out of the Bromborough one.

Originally Posted by MrIca (Post 35835603)

Oh right, I always thought the subcontractors use vans with the logo of their company, Kelly Communications for instance with a Virgin Media logo also. These vans just have Virgin Media on them with van related puns on the front. Why would VM allow subcontractors to use VM owned vans anyway?

Originally Posted by Pierre (Post 35835627)

VM don't own the vans, the vans are leased as are the contractors. They are all logo' up the same as the vans are dedicated working on the VM contract.

If you're having VM installed then VM want you to see a VM van, not a Kelly's van.

I'm not saying the vans you see are contractors vans, they may or may not be.

Originally Posted by Horizon (Post 35836833)

Just a little titbit of info from the webcast today, VM are currently building out to 300k homes at a cost of £500 per home passed. This time last year the number was at 30k homes.

A question asked to Mike Fries was, could VM accelerate and even expand the build out to more new homes. The answer was that Liberty was pleased with the numbers and take up of services and they could expand and accelerate if they wanted, or slow down if costs were too high.

So, there is a possiblity that the build-out may increased to more homes once this current project is done.

Originally Posted by vm_tech (Post 35836844)

This is what I've always thought: project lightening is a 5 year, 3 billion pound project. If this returns them 4 billion, why would they stop at 5 years? Obviously it's a waiting game they won't see the money back instantly, but if they forecast it will bring more money in they will carry on. They will stop once the forecasts say there's now too much risk of not earning money from this, so we will stop

Originally Posted by Horizon (Post 35836833)

Just a little titbit of info from the webcast today, VM are currently building out to 300k homes at a cost of £500 per home passed. This time last year the number was at 30k homes.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet (Post 35840023)

The cabinet on the right as you look at it is a power cabinet. On the left you've a 'standard' CATV and nodal cabinet that'll deliver services to a bunch of people's homes alongside terminating fibre. In the middle looks like a plinth for an MSAN that provides telco services. Those are delivered with the MSAN in the cabinet already so presumably the ducts and plinth are covered up waiting for the MSAN itself.

Closer to delivery time I imagine that cover will be replaced by the MSAN.

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The 4 million premises, £3 billion Lightning is the first phase of the project. If it goes as planned VM can and will continue to build.

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VM are willing to suck up considerably more than £500 per premises passed during the course of this project. They will be building to completely new towns and are budgeting £750 per premises passed across the lifetime of the project.

The back end of the project here will be coming in at close to £1k per premises passed, offset by the costs of the earlier phases of the build and justified by take up and expected ARPU in those streets.

Pierre can probably pull up the details on that particular drama.

Originally Posted by MrIca (Post 35840132)

Great, so Virgin Media are going to that new estate. Interesting, as they didn't build out to a new estate that was built only 2 years ago round the corner.