Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/06...dia_subsidies/

It now wants to use the power firms infrastructure to expand in rural and semi-rural areas. Maybe Openreach is charging too much for access??

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

You sure? Sounds to me like it will be in areas where BT has no broadband access and no plans to install it.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

This has been touted for many years but it'll be interesting to see how VM actually do it.

I've always assumed that VM (its predecessor companies) would use power lines to distribute cable tv and internet out into the countryside in the same way that I use homeplugs to distribute the net around my home.

But I wonder, when the article says using the power firms infrastructure, they could just mean using the electricity pylons to sling their own cable between them. No digging roads or digging up Farmer Giles' fields. It could be a very cheap way to extend VM's network. And VM could use microwave/mobile transmitters to take the signal the "last mile" into small towns and villages.

But, if VM do actually use the power lines themselves, I would have concerns about how effective the signal quality would be especially when everyone turns on the kettle.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

LOL. Do you think we'd get a 'brown-out' on the broadband signal during the commercial breaks?
:p:

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

It helps if you read the article:

Poles, not lines. ;)

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I did.

A trial is just that, a trial. I'm 100% certain that what they are doing in the trial wont be mapped over for deployment.

No mention is made of how VM's signal gets to the village only what they do with it once its there. It is not commercially viable to run fibre direct into homes in small villages. If it were, BT would have done it with their national wide network of telephone poles.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

????????????????????????????

It's fibre, not using power lines but running fibre over them.

Unless you boil your kettle with lasers I'm sure you'll be fine.

I would have thought someone in Seven Kings Head End would realise that.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Cable operators in the States, Canada, etc, etc, have shared utility poles with the power company since the beginning of their cable deployments Horizon. It's a non-issue to either optical or RF sections of network. Open and unterminated cable points in homes are far more of an 'issue' for ingress than sharing a pole with a power line.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

....but they're not sharing poles in this trial. And as far as I know, cable deployments, including using shared poles are in large towns and cities in the States. There is no cable in small towns, although an American small town is "slightly" larger than one of ours.

I can sling fibre from two of my own poles and charge a lot less. So, what is the point of this "trial" apart from grabbing a headline. And I repeat, how does the signal get to the village in the first place, fibre, coaxial, magic??? and how does it link to VM's network. If it's all by fibre and its so cheap to do it, why hasn't it been done before and by BT?

The article is short on key details.

Yes, I know it's fibre but they are not running it over power cables or using power companies' poles.

Don't understand your seven kings comment.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

No cable in small towns? Cable TV is more watched in the US than OTA or satellite, nearly 60% of US homes take cable, and its' availability is over 90% One big reason for this coverage is the sharing of utility poles.

The maths is a bit different for Virgin compared with BT. BT get paid whether they upgrade people or not, Virgin covering a new area is a whole new revenue stream and using power company poles throughout massively reduces cost of rollout. In some ways rural areas with poor levels of competition are an even better market for Virgin than urban ones where they compete with Telefonica, Sky, etc and could give a potentially higher uptake.

Certainly some rural areas are quite persuasive for upgrades as the cost per home of upgrades to FTTP are comparable to London. Getting rid of many of those costs by using utility poles is another bonus. Nice clusters of homes close together with minimal civils required to get to them.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

There are a good number of homes out here in the middle of nowhere that are strung out over a fair distance, but there's an overhead powerline running up the valley behind them with a spur off to each house, or group of houses. The power lines are overhead to the point of property entry in many cases. Those where the final approach is buried still have the final pole within a couple of dozen metres from the property.

We'd all love super-fast fibre broadband - none of us can get more than 8Mb, most get no more than 2-3 and nobody north of me gets anything at all.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

The trial was to determine how the engineering aspects of using poles to deliver service could be be overcome. The network engineers have worked on an access network for 20+ years that has been in the ground so this is all new technology for them.

Virgin have to identify the risks and issues caused by bringing the !invisible" core network aspects it currently has underground, above ground and onto poles. It also has to trial new equipment to provision this type of service as the existing transmission equipment will not be able to be pole mounted in its current state. The trial would also extend to FTTC and FTTH to determine how the varying technologies would affect the distribution of service. Its a hell of a lot of work, I still have to see how the trial is going, I keep forgetting to check it out!

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I know this isn't the main reason for these trials but could Virgin use this to bring FTTH within their existing cabled areas?

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Internet access (broadband over powerlines)

Broadband over power lines (BPL), also known as power-line Internet or powerband, is the use of PLC technology to provide broadband Internet access through ordinary power lines. A computer (or any other device) would need only to plug a BPL "modem" into any outlet in an equipped building to have high-speed Internet access. International Broadband Electric Communications or IBEC and other companies currently offer BPL service to several electric cooperatives.

BPL may offer benefits over regular cable or DSL connections: the extensive infrastructure already available appears to allow people in remote locations to access the Internet with relatively little equipment investment by the utility. Also, such ubiquitous availability would make it much easier for other electronics, such as televisions or sound systems, to hook up. Cost of running wires such as ethernet in many buildings can be prohibitive; Relying on wireless has a number of predictable problems including security, limited maximum throughput and inability to power devices efficiently.

But variations in the physical characteristics of the electricity network and the current lack of IEEE standards mean that provisioning of the service is far from being a standard, repeatable process. And, the amount of bandwidth a BPL system can provide compared to cable and wireless is in question. The prospect of BPL could motivate DSL and cable operators to more quickly serve rural communities. [1]

PLC modems transmit in medium and high frequency (1.6 to 80 MHz electric carrier). The asymmetric speed in the modem is generally from 256 kbit/s to 2.7 Mbit/s. In the repeater situated in the meter room the speed is up to 45 Mbit/s and can be connected to 256 PLC modems. In the medium voltage stations, the speed from the head ends to the Internet is up to 135 Mbit/s. To connect to the Internet, utilities can use optical fiber backbone or wireless link.

Deployment of BPL has illustrated a number of fundamental challenges, the primary one being that power lines are inherently a very noisy environment. Every time a device turns on or off, it introduces a pop or click into the line. Energy-saving devices often introduce noisy harmonics into the line. The system must be designed to deal with these natural signaling disruptions and work around them. For these reasons BPL can be thought of as a halfway between wireless transmission (where likewise there is little control of the medium through which signals propagate) and wired transmission (but not requiring any new cables).

Broadband over power lines has developed faster in Europe than in the United States due to a historical difference in power system design philosophies. Power distribution uses step-down transformers to reduce the voltage for use by customers. But BPL signals cannot readily pass through transformers, as their high inductance makes them act as low-pass filters, blocking high-frequency signals. So, repeaters must be attached to the transformers. In the U.S., it is common for a small transformer hung from a utility pole to service a single house or a small number of houses. In Europe, it is more common for a somewhat larger transformer to service 10 or 100 houses. For delivering power to customers, this difference in design makes little difference for power distribution. But for delivering BPL over the power grid in a typical U.S. city requires an order of magnitude more repeaters than in a comparable European city. On the other hand, since bandwidth to the transformer is limited, this can increase the speed at which each household can connect, due to fewer people sharing the same line. One possible solution is to use BPL as the backhaul for wireless communications, for instance by hanging Wi-Fi access points or cellphone base stations on utility poles, thus allowing end-users within a certain range to connect with equipment they already have.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

That's not what this is.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

It wouldnt make sense to replace a perfectly functional network unless there was a rpoduct that can utilise it. If Virgin trial FTTH then it will still be with the same products and services, there would be ne benefit to the customer having FTTH at all. In fact, it would be less of a benefit as they would need a powered ONT fitted in their home.

FTTH by aerial distribution makes sense where there is no cable as installation costs are a hell of a lot less than aerial deployment of HFC.

:)

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I'm sure FTTH / or existing cable service running over fibre, would ultimately mean each home is sharing a node with fewer connections.. 32 if I remember correctly? Where as with current digital cable, hundreds of homes can be found sharing the infrastructure?? Although I may have misunderstood all this!!

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Sorry guys, until the trial is over I cant talk about it at the moment. Remember this is a trial so there will be multiple distribution and installation methods trialled. This is "Virgin" territory for UK cable (pardon the pun), so will take some time and lots of tinkering. I cant wait to see the outcome personally and hope something does evolve from this, but we will have to wait and see.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I suggested that ages ago, also in towns and cities like Westminster,they can use the sewers.

In Aberdeen the Cable service there ran along the BT infrastructure but due to insufficient funds,the company sold to Carphone Warehouse Group and CPW did not acquire the Cable TV assets and went into liquidation which means it now lies in disuse, if it was to have been taken over by NTL back in 1999, the same leasing arrangement would exist as the Milton Keynes and Westminster franchise. The Cable TV system there was Analogue and also needed millions to upgrade.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

The utility company I work for trialled the DPL stuff in the 90's. Apparently it was quite successful but they abandonded the project because of potential competion from BT and the various cable networks - http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/09...eb_pulls_plug/

About 5 years ago, we were closing down a site with a large warehouse and I was dispatched to check out some crates of old IT kit they found in storage. Low and behold it was boxes and boxes of the modems and other kit for the substations from the project. It all went for recycling.....

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

My takeaways from the Register article are:

1 FTTH is coming via a pole strung solution
2 What tooke them so long?
3 Existing customers are none the wiser what'll happen to them

How easy is it to pull fibre undergound to the home in place of the current coax? I've no doubt that VM would recover the costs through an installation fee when moving to an approproate higher service tier.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Its not just the coax drop to the customer that would be repalced though, its the entire distribution network in the streets all the way back to the cabinets and potentially even further back to MUX cabinets. Customers couldnt be expected to levy any of this cost as it would be in the 10's of Thousands of £.

FTTH was only ever talked about as a potential, its something thats being looked at but its a massive project. i dont think we will hear much more about pole distribution unless there is some changes to the regulation of aerial delivery in the UK.

What took them so long and continues to be a hindrance - BT.

Existing customers wont notice any difference if the service is delivered by HFC or FTTH, it will still be the same end product being delivered. FTTH is just marketing speak for now, it has no real benefit in the world when HFC still has running legs (DOCSIS 3, channel bonding, SDV etc etc). FTTH should be renamed FTTPR (Fibre To The Press Release) in my opinion.

:)

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Press release http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/p...120&highlight=

Apparently the first trail should be up and running by next month.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Yes, and that was basically what I was saying earlier in the thread about the first "trial". Literally nothing but a PR stunt. Rigging two poles up in a car park, slinging fibre between them and running that cable into homes. But we now have, it seems, a proper trial.

The purpose, I believe is still largely PR and Berkett didn't deny it when an analyst put that to him. But he does want to use it as leverage to the Government to encourage BT to open up their networks. As Berkett put it, he want BT not just to "open up" but actually be "opened" to VM.

A few details were given about the trial, it will use the poles of the electricity company and interestingly they are seeing how tolerant the fibre cables are between high and low voltage electricity cables. What he didn't say, but inferred, is that for the fibre cable to be tolerant of high voltage cables means the fibre will in some cases go over long distances between towns as that's where high voltage cables are deployed...

Curiously, he said VM does not own the fibre.... If VM is not careful, he could find that the energy companies might "wake up" and decide to be tv/broadband operators themselves if this trial is sucessful... They're sitting on quite a mountain of cash from the rising prices of gas and electricity.

He said if VM can economically pass more homes, then he will using whatever method available.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I think 'nothing but' PR is a tad harsh. Many of us can remember the days when NTL repeatedly insisted that it had no plans to extend its network at all. The fact they're now even talking about it is vast progress.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I always thought the Government said they weren't allowed to do this. Which is why the dug up the roads in the first place. Unlike in America where cable is delivered over head.
Can you imagine if this had been implemented in the first place? How different would cable be in this country?

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

They would have still sat back and been happy with their little franchises and let Sky run away with it all.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Yeah i suppose you're right. If they had been profitable they wouldn't have wanted to sell.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I think the fact that they were small franchises is what hurt cable the most, none were big enough to do what Sky were doing and all were happy to pay to get access to Sports and Movies at someone elses risk taking. I am sure Sky was glad to sell everything to cable back then as well as they would have been providing cash to set up all these channels and deals.

Kind of makes you wonder now that Virgin are out of the brodcast game will this let Sky get even more ahead?

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I don't know. I think Virgin are more keen to concentrate on their delivery now. Rather than investing heavily in a channel portfolio that didn't always give a great return, they are investing in many other areas to create a stronger packge as a whole to their customers. All the money is being thrown into stronger bb speeds, TiVo and HD. I think Virgin realised it wasn't the channels attracting customers but the strong and unique package they offer their customers. All while letting Sky provide them the channels they sold and most likely the HD versions soon!

I for one can't wait to see what VM have lined up for the future:):eek:

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

bt have already developed special fiber optic cable and junction boxes for use on bt poles.They have trained some of their fiber enginers on how to use it and are already instaling it. Also bt have been sharing electric company poles for ages !

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

Can't see any technical issues with incorporating a fibre optic system along an existing (pole mounted) infrastructure. Being fibre optic it would not be susceptible to any electro magnetic interference from adjacent systems (power or communication) neither would it induce any either. In fact within the United States and Canada this is the most common practice for cable installations and works very well.

Every credit to VM for pursuing such an initiative, I hope they're successful.

Si thee

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

It does give me a little smile to think of all those overhead networks that ntl shut down because underground was the way to go. Many of those networks that they shut and paid contractors to remove the poles and wayleave agreements along with them are in areas that are still not cabled.

Then again, I guess the management have always known what they are doing;)

I also seem to recall that ntl had problems with the overhead systems they were building/upgrading in Ireland. I seem to recall some of the old employees who had worked on the overhead systems (Original Rediffusion) were asked if they were interested in going over to Ireland to work.

The reason was due to the problem finding people with the necessary skills to string fibre or coax between poles.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

You realise it's completely different management now to then ;)

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I am well aware some of the 'decision' makers that were responsible for Network Architecture are still with the company doing the same job.

It may be getting on for 10 years since I left the mess behind, but some of the survivors are still surviving.;)

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

The government wouldn't allow them to deploy over head at the time would they? The cable companies had no choice but to dig up the roads.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

That is not strictly true if my memory serves me right. Although you are correct that the licensing for the new franchises were for underground systems. The old overhead systems (Some of these had underground Trunks) were under LDO licences.

When the governing body at the time took away the targets for the 'new' builds because operators were not meeting them, I believe they also deregulated and allowed any operator to provide services in any area. This left it open for the LDO overhead systems (Then owned by ntl) to upgrade these as they saw fit.

ntl chose to close the systems instead of utilising the underground ducts, poles and wayleaves to reach customers in new areas.

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

As far as Im aware, there are regulatory issues regarding Aeriel deployment by placing new poles. Virgin have the option to piggy back on other providers poles but this requires an agreement with said provider to use their network. The problem with using BT's distribution network would potentially allow BT to use Virgins duct network (where available) so I belive Virgin were looking at alternative options (hence the powerline agreement). Cant wait to see this live, we have great potential to reach more areas by using the architecture so I hope its a success!

:D

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

I realise the technology is a bit different, but I'm amazed at how fast these things are becoming:

http://www.solwise.co.uk/net-powerline-gig-index.htm

Re: Virgin in talks with Power firms
 

But if you read my post, the whole point I was making was that ntl acquired a large number of overhead cable TV systems when they paid over the odds to buy these off Metro Cable TV. These systems were shut down and contractors were employed to remove the poles, this happened after the industry was deregulated.

My whole point is that the company paid to remove overhead networks and wayleaves, now they are looking to pay BT to use their poles in these areas.

ntl (or should I say CableTel) purchased the company instead of bidding against them for a franchise. Instead of utilising any of it, they shut it down around 2001.