How big are VM's infills?
 

Question to anyone who might know, how much infill are VM doing at the moment?

Can't help but notice there is a big gap in LS10, IE all of it, along with most of LS9, where the network stops abruptly.

I ask about scale as we're talking I would guesstimate 10-15,000 premises.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

From http://point-topic.com/wp-content/up...ia-profile.pdf

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Thanks Sir though this doesn't really answer my question. These could be 30,000 premises where VM paid the developer more than BT so got the ducting, and/or they could be 100 different projects of 300/400 homes passed.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I couldn't tell you the mix. There are a lot of small infills, such as individual streets or blocks of flats, and a few larger ones, but I don't expect areas the size of LS10 to be fully built from scratch.

There are some new builds in LS10 (e.g. LS10 1JF). I suspect these have been selected because there are existing VM Business customers nearby.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

This is going to be escalated to see what, if anything, can be done. Thanks!

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

VM has a budget per home passed for infil (at the moment C£350) this has been promised to be upped moving forward.
simply explained if the whole cost of expanding down a street that has ducting close by comes in on, or less than, £350 per house passed (and they have the capacity in the nearest cabinet) they will build it.
if they have to build a new cabinet then the price rises accordingly.
with this in mind a terraced street probably has more chance of infil than a cul-de-sac with only a few houses on it.
as regards the 'bidding war' you make mention of as to who gets the ducting that doesnt exist.
BT are duty bound to provide a line up to every new build home.
VM simply agree a price for the house builder to install the underground ducting as the development progresses and wire the properties as the houses get built. ;)

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

You need to tell the major house builder I communicated with a couple of weeks back there is no bidding war, they seem somewhat confused on this matter in that they seem to think they sell the ducts to whomever pays them the most, whether BT, VM or an altnet.

As you may be aware the BT USO has a cost ceiling which a VM-only development will break.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

he may be talking about whether bt use him,at his price,to lay the duct for them or another contractor does it.
either way,as i said in my last post,bt are duty bound to supply a feed to each property.
the good thing for the homeowner is that vm may be in partnership with the housebuilder and they therefore have a choice of providers for their media services.;)

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

He was talking about who gets to provide the telecomms. Given he is the guy who makes these deals I would assume he has some idea what he is talking about.

Housbuilders and apartment block builders have some exclusivity. Until roads are adopted by the council they can tell BT to go forth same as any other code powers operator. There are estates and apartment buildings with no BT coverage at all.

---------- Post added at 14:18 ---------- Previous post was at 14:11 ----------

Anyway this has been escalated within VM. Not holding my breath but we will see what happens.

Could do with modern infrastructure next to the existing MATV Rediffusion style stuff on houses nearby. Yes really, wall mounted amps and splitters.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

try this link,may be helpful
http://www.choose.net/media/guide/fa...et-expand.html

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I'd love the option to pay to have VM expand down my street, but being about 65 miles from the nearest node and 125 miles from the nearest VM headend, I think the cost might be a bit prohibitive.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Indeed - email cablemystreet; may have already done that and had the obvious 'computer says no'.

Would rather get a comprehensive quote to the specific estate, then check on availability to the local area, then get the local MP involved to see what is possible via an incremental expansion to an area of a major city which was missed out in the initial build but would likely be good value in the longer term.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

That map is not accurate.

As some of the Middleton area is cabled, South of the Golf Course. The fibre ring has also been installed.

As the trunk fibre is already in place, buildong the node (if not already in place) and out from there shold be easy.

Just will come down to cost, sorry but I have no idea if it is planned, but the back bone is there, so it would certainly be a contender.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Pierre,

Thank you. Can you name me any roads where there is fibre infrastructure?

Ring Road Middleton, Middleton Park Road, Thorpe Lane A654?

Cost was looked into previously and it didn't seem good.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

What about flats? Or are there issues in getting access from the leaseholders, in my case the Council? In my area,the main roads is cabled - the A219 aka Wimbledon Park Side - but not the nearby estate eg post codes SW19 6BZ, SW19 6DA, SW19 6DN. The estates contain far more people than a terraced street.
Ironically, the houses along the cabled A219 are large multi-million pound properties and spaced well away from each other and the road itself so cannot generate much custom per metre of cabling.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Ta.

If the black is cabled areas not sure if those are completely accurate, I can see at least one area there which is not cabled but has black running down the streets.

Picking on one of those, ls10 4uq, no cable there. 4TU, TX, UN, black lines down the streets but no cable and no CATV covers in the street. Planned but not built?

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Could be, I'm not a planner.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I use Lingwell Road and Acre Road every few days so I'll have a look and see if there are any signs of VM (be early next week now though).

It's a shame LCC won't share some of their bandwidth with you - we've got a pretty good connection in the offices just across the field from you.

Cheers

Grim

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I've checked several postcodes in these areas.

There is no VM on that map that I can see. The Think Broadband map appears to be correct and for some reason these weren't built.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Okay looks like the drops weren't built but there is fibre network nearby, going by the Telewest inspection cover and seam in a pavement.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Could be trunk routes or Limit of construction.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

There's certainly a trunk route there; the cable network here would've been CWC then ntl, coming off Leeds Seacroft I'd have thought. Also just looking at the route of said big black line it goes down a major road, cuts through a housing estate, then onto another major road in the general direction of Wakefield, Dewsbury and Ossett.

Certainly looks like there were plans to tap said fibre / stick CATV in the ducts which didn't happen.

EDIT: Unsure what the red line is there but the thick black line can be accounted for at least for so far.

http://outsizefiles.leeds.gov.uk/str...43A&CallerID=3

Indeed it makes it to the main raid and off to Tingley.

http://outsizefiles.leeds.gov.uk/str...0A&CallerID=39

EDIT 2: The red line is fibre belonging to BSkyB, originally Easynet.

http://outsizefiles.leeds.gov.uk/str...30&CallerID=13
http://outsizefiles.leeds.gov.uk/str...S16&CallerID=9

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

One of the things they look at is how many people would sign up if we go into a area . We had 2 Villages that were missed out the trunk fibres went passed these villages . The local residents got to gather and went round the villages to see what people thought . They then went to BT BDUK and Virgin BT were not interested as they had no plans for the villages until 2014 . They won some money from the BDUK but the would have to come up with a plan to secure the money . At first Virgin said no but the group did not give up then Virgin looked at the information they had got . They had to be neutral when doing the survey giving the home owner multiple choices plus at the end of the day all they wanted in the villages was better broadband and didn't care who provided it . Virgin set up some meetings with the villagers and were quite impressed with the amount of pledges they got if they came into the villages . Both villages got over 55% sales heading to 60+ so virgin are very happy with that . So one way is to get a local group formed it worked for the villages as other areas have been in touch with the team about what to do and how to put there case to virgin .

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Already done, 2 years ago.

Now have one of the highest uptakes of BT FTTC anywhere.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

'Apparently' complicating the issue is that although there is fibre nearby it doesn't go to Seacroft where the local hubsite is :(

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

You say the chambers on the fibre route are Telewest?

You also rightly point out that Leeds is an exCWC franchise.

I haven't checked, but I will, but I would assume the trunk is obviously exTelewest connecting Bradford to Wakefield and Barnsley.

However, that is not to say that it can't be connected to a fibre that runs to Seacroft. So if the will was there to build that area, it could be done.

Was on a call on Friday, and infills are going to be a major priority in the coming years. Manchester got a big write, didn't hear so much about Leeds though.

But if it stacks up, there's the best chance in over a decade it that it could be built

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Thanks Pierre. We have a VM staffer in this area also, he's mentioned that Liberty are 'imminently' opening up the cheque book for infills, and mentioned that to get HFC to the nearest property to the current network c. £20k was mentioned as a cost.

What worries me more is that I think there's a section 58 between that fibre cable and where we want it to be :(

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Kinda attached - any idea if this got done?

http://outsizefiles.leeds.gov.uk/str...3A&CallerID=12

Closed off, but not on your map there. It looks as though there was going to be a build down Belle Isle Road, and you can happily trace the route.

Don't think it happened!

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

We are keen to get VM services in our new development. The house that is literally over the fence from our very small (16 house development) is on VM as are the other houses in the street directly leading into our close.

Cable My Street have said that a survey has been done on our area but that it is prohibitively expensive to install the services but they may revisit the site in the future.

I have Sky and it sucks, come on VM!

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Grief you guys (VM) have a shedload of duct empty around this general area. Quite an abrupt end to the build, then!

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

In other news via a 'quirk' despite being in Leeds this area appears was in a Telewest franchise along with Beeston and other bits in between Wakefield and Bradford.

Yorkshire Cable would've been building here.

So makes sense that coming off that Telewest fibre run or running with it would've been the CATV for the area, had it been built!

Looks like Middleton and Hunslet in Leeds, and Tingley in Wakefield are all over the place as far as plant goes.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Drawn a blank.

Answer at the moment an emphatic 'no', so an area the size of most towns has zero cable, due to Bell Cablemedia not finishing the build. The joys of franchises, this area and the 2 areas directly to our north all had their franchise owned by a different company to most of the rest of the city, the result being most of the rest of the city had cable.

We're a pretty big black hole in the cable coverage and it looks like we'll remain that way for the foreseeable.

There is core fibre running through the area, with ducts going to Wakefield, Bradford and (I think) Seacroft, at very least the ducts to Wakefield and Bradford go through served CATV areas and there seem to be spurs off that ducting.

Disappointing.

Thanks for the advice.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Have asked for a price to get it delivered here.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Anyone know if VM have ever sold ducts?

If they have no intention of doing anything with the thousands of premises passed by ducts around here, and certainly no inclination has been shown, would seem to make sense for them to liquidate the asset.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Never heard of it happening.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Ta. There is something going on at high level, we'll see what the outcome is.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Are you sure that its VM that own them? Seems odd that they've done all the hard graft in digging up the roads, which is the bulk of the cost of providing services and then not providing them.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

But that happened up and down rhe UK. Here we have one road in a village that is completely ducted right up to every little house, little jointbox covers with NYNEX on them but the ducts are empty and there's no cabinets. There's also no duct to connect this road to the rest of the network which is 2 miles away.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

....yeah, that sounds like the old cablecos we all use to know and love....!

Must have been a Nynex manager that lived in the village and insisted that his road got "prepared" for cable, even though there would have been zero chance of a small village getting cable tv back then, let alone now. Residential streets should only have been dug up once the "trunk" fibre cable has been passed through the area. There is no point in digging up streets and pavements, until the cable tv network via the main trunk fibre cable is there. What a waste.

My road and the surrounding estate got dug up and cabled about six months after the main fibre cable went through the main road in my area.

What ignitionet is talking about is not a few houses, but many. 90% of the money was already spent in preparing his area, so seems very odd that the work wasn't finished.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

VM didn't do the hard graft, they acquired the companies that had, and had gotten themselves in big financial trouble doing it.

The 100,000 premises in East London are at least partially properties with empty ducts.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Have a look at the picture I put earlier in this thread. All those properties connected to nothing.

Work in some areas stopped, literally, overnight. It wasn't just one construction crew doing everything ya know, they were working in parallel and were to meet in the middle. The work in individual streets is more time consuming and it would've been crazy not doing that in parallel with the trunk build.

See attachments, all empty ducts apart from core network fibre that runs through some of it down the main road route, and some of those areas aren't connected to anything at all, in the first picture there's duct to properties which goes nowhere else.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

ntl, Telewest and VM's expansion budgets were, being mean, laughable. What money there was was spent on upgrading some analogue-only areas to 2-way digital and rebuilding 2-way networks to higher standards.

Remember that some analogue areas were considered too expensive to upgrade to 2-way digital so were simply ditched. Some of these East London areas among them.

Edit: It is worth mentioning though that in these areas with no cabinets but ducting and tees the most cost efficient way to deploy services to them now is FTTP. Doesn't require cabinets as no active hardware required out in the field at all beyond an ONT on each subscriber's wall.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I lived in a Nynex area and the motto seemed to be to do it as quickly as possible so lots of teams working in parallel. The longer it takes to lay the cable, the longer it took for Nynex to get subscribers' money in so on paper it made sense to do it speedily. In practise this meant entire roads with poor pavements whillst cable was laid and unhappy residents. That was when it was for cable TV, I think residents will be far more forgiving these days as it is also for speedy broadband.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Just done a bit of Googling Street View down the Middleton Ring Road and some surrounding roads. Nice area, by the way, just the kind of place that cablecos like to deal with!

Clearly there is ducting along the ring road and some streets. You can see where the ducts go up to each individual house. But as you say, its hit and miss. I personally don't think there is any cable in any of the ducts, or the ring road. There are clearly no cable street cabinets and I didn't see any BT street cabinets either. Do you have BT fibre services available in your area?

I think the street diggers "the Murphy Men", were given a whole area to dig and duct and so they started it as they saw fit, hence the ad hoc nature of it. Some roads have ducts, some don't.

I don't think the cableco ever had any oversight on the work being done or were ever involved at street level. At some point the money dried up and the work was abandoned.

If there was no oversight, it calls into question the quality of the work done and whether the ducts that were built are fit for purpose. What may have seemed a small task to begin with, could actually become something else, ie a total rebuild from scratch.

Someone from VM has got to go the area and have a look, assuming they don't already know what was done and not done. When all the cablecos started merging with one another, a lot of information was lost as people were laid off, so VM may not have accurate records for the area.

If the ducts that have been built are fine, I cannot see why VM wouldn't want to lay cable in the area and put in their street cabinets. The bulk of the work and cost is done.

Assuming a small takeup of services, say 10%, a 1000 homes paying about £40 a month, that's half a million quid a year in revenue being lost. No wonder all the old cablecos went bust. They were just crap.

But VM don't do FTTP, but you could point out that very fact to them. Not having to build a load of street cabinets is a big incentive. But I have never heard of VM even considering doing FTTP, so good luck on that one!

As for East London, a totally different situtation and its already been mentioned in the thread about the East London expansion why it wasn't done.

Basically, the area was/still is made up of a high immigrant population from Bangladesh and Pakistan. It is densely populated, the highest in the country. When the cableco started offering services in those areas it found out there was a very high number of "issues", like bills not being paid and theft of services. A very high number of issues... The cableco, Encom, never publicised this for fear of being branded racists, but those areas were abandoned for that reason. The poor quality ducting being given out as the official reason for not upgrading the areas is rubbish. By the way, although some of these areas have changed, most have not. So, VM will rediscover this is due course....

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I can say at least here in an ex Nynex area these empty ducts are of very high quality, they also have multiple ducts running in and out of the various Nynex pavement boxes.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Dealing with these in turn.

I know there is no cable in the ducts. There is trunk fibre network cable running down the Ring Road and then along but nothing in the spurs off it going to the premises themselves.

There is Openreach FTTC here, I campaigned for it to cover this specific area. We currently don't have FTTC as we sold out the first 288 line cabinet and are waiting for a second one to be installed - take up of SFBB is >50%. In addition due to there being no TV aerials included with the properties penetration of Sky is >50% so most of the FTTC customers are likewise Sky tiple play. I have made these points to VM in the past in the hope that they will, at least, consider completing the duct builds around here even if they leave this specific small area uncovered.

A takeup of 10% isn't going to be close to enough to cover it. That's a loss of revenue but the initial costs were big. The cableco went under when they tried to build too much and borrowed too heavily to do it.

VM have been trialing FTTP on multiple occasions and in multiple sites. They have only trialed FTTP when assessing new ways to deliver. They're being cagey but there is no point in their building HFC to new builds as it is actually more expensive per home passed than FTTP now. Optics are cheaper, ONTs are cheaper, active plant is relatively expensive.

This thread is interesting.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Google Street View says there is ducting and drop points to individual houses, beyond that, no idea!

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Don't worry yourself about using Street View to check ducts and drops, the images I've attached to the the thread show those, they're what's in the ground according to VM.

The bits I don't know are what's in the ducts, merely that they are there.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I know what you're saying about FTTP and it makes sense. But there are about 3 new builds round here (in last year or so), anf they have used HFC. Interestingly all of the new estates in this area built by large, nationwide house builders haven't had any kind of VM service installed. It's only in estates built by local or regional builders.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I worked for Bell CableMedia during the mid-90s, and what Horizon said about Encom was true (I spent 9 months in Docklands trying to sort out their billing system issues).

There were a reasonable percentage of customers who would get a telephone installed into a property (which was allegedly sub-let from someone else, for 'deniability' purposes), and who would then let lots of others use the phones for long-distance calls (taking money from them for these).

This was before real-time call billing was available....

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Indeed, that thread is very interesting. I'll keep an eye on it and agree that it would appear that VM are using FTTP in that area, reinforces it that phone service won't be offered. This could be what we end up with in the new additions in London too.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I was aware of FTTP trials a few years ago, but ISPreview are saying several different things have started in the last few weeks. Interesting indeed.

But for those of us who have the "bog standard" cable tv network, we mustn't delude ourselves that VM will come along and rip everything out and install FTTP instead, because they won't. Plenty of sweat to get out of the existing assets first...

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Yes, lease usually, but on very long term leases. But this would be for core routes and not access network.

All the carriers lease and swap infrastructure.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

No. The HFC will receive a staged upgrade eventually to DOCSIS 3.1 running over FTTLA, so optical nodes with launch amplifier and pretty much no further amplification, before replacement of the coax altogether.

FTTLA means higher signal fidelity and easier upgrades, no trunk or bridge amps and very, very few line extenders. Also means lower power bills and maintenance for VM, not having to line power amplifiers but just use mains for the nodes and no further active components to maintain.

---------- Post added at 18:56 ---------- Previous post was at 18:55 ----------

Indeed - I have been told it's not going to happen, with the caveat that VM may decide to use those ducts for builds.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Makes sense. They've got an old empty NYNEX duct here running for 3 miles which links into their network at one end but doesn't go anywhere at the other. I can see the point of it would have been to link another town (where it finishes) into their network and then the build stopped. There must be a few of these empty, fairly long core network routes.

I wonder if VM even have them in their databases, they'd be useful for linking 3G and 4G backhaul for the likes of MBNL nowadays.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

VM already provide the backhaul infrastructure for MBNL.

So I'm pretty sure that if those opportunities existed, they would have already been investigated.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

You've missed my point entirely. I know they provide the backhaul for MBNL (that's why I specifically mentioned them). What I'm saying is I wonder whether they know about all of these half finished ducts they have? I've heard their records are not very good and I wouldn't be surprised if there are plenty of empty ducts they aren't even aware of.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

The duct records seem okay; the deficiency at least when I was working for them regarded what, if anything, was in the ducts in question.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Info on the East London network expansion has just been posted on the VM community forum, along with a postcode checker:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...-p/2431339#M36

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Hope they will give us the figures for the spike in fraud along with churn. A lot of what they're upgrading is a total excrement hole of an area.

I should've invested in shares in a card sharing box producer.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

As I understand it VM are scrapping cards for box's, just what I heard in the office.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Incorporating everything onto the CAM?

Devil's in the detail on that one. Having what should be an always on return path helps a ton in access control.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Got a quote for some of this area from the new bulid team after a while.

Was higher than either BT or a smaller operator gave for FTTP/B.

Bit of a farce really. No wonder VM have been so reluctant to do any digging themselves if they are managing to make network build cost that much per home passed.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Which demographic watches most TV?

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

After your late teens, the older you are, the more TV you watch. http://thefuturebuzz.com/2011/02/03/tv-viewing-trend/
I don't know about other demographics.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Why would VM care? Their priority would be who would pay the most for a basket of services, not who sits there glued for longest.

Building in some of the most deprived areas of the UK probably means many who are unlikely to purchase the 'Big Daddy' package but hey they can re-use some infrastructure so it was cheaper to do.

I believe you're a shareholder. Either VM's build costs are absurd or they're extremely reluctant to spend money passing new areas, neither of which bode well longer term.

It shouldn't be costing them more to pass homes than a far smaller FTTP operator but that's precisely what the costings they provided me suggested. That or said smaller FTTP operator is happy to contribute more themselves to the cost of the build.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

People like Sirius know more about all this but I think they have a cost model they work to. The nearer the houses are together the cheaper the build.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I still can't believe they are missing out on huge new build estates, it's frnkly bizarre. There's a new housing estate with hundreds of homes, the road it leads off from is cabled. However Virgin are nowhere to be seen on the new estate, two different building companies too, not just the one.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

The challenge is them knowing about it - it's obviously much cheaper to put the infrastructure in when the site in in the building phase, not so much afterwards.

In the 90's, under the RaSWA91, the builders and other utilities were supposed to inform interested parties to enable concurrent build, rather than post-build - not sure if this still happens.

On the economics of a build (I don't know what the current cost per 100 metres is), if you had 300 homes, and you get a 35% uptake (which is quite good), and at a estimate (Big Kahuna costs) of £60 per month, times 12 months, times 105 customers, that is just over £75k per year from those customers.

If VM's margin (don't know, so only estimating) is 10 or 20 percent, that is only £7.5 to £15k per year.....

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

That's for the co-ordination of streetworks, which is different to housing developments.

The NRSWA side of things would not come into play until the developer had to dig into the existing adjacent road to connect up water,gas, etc.

The developer has to provide BT connections, which is fine for BT and their resellers.

To get the developer to install another duct for A.N.Other operator, then begs the question of who owns the duct?

If VM have not provided the duct or dug it themselves ( and to do either they must know about the development and have agreement from the developer to do it) then Who owns the duct?

Who maintains the duct and chambers? Who is liable if the chambers and duct cause injury to someone.

It's not straightforward.

VM aren't the only other provider out there that would be thankful for a duct to use. City fibre, hyper optic and alike would all be equally entitled to use a 'free to anyone' duct installed by a developer.

So unless VM dig it or it is installed under agreement for VMS use only, then it is unlikely they would use it.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

That model is unrealistic. If they insist on building HFC they have to accept that £300 per home passed isn't enough to expand coverage significantly.

100,000 homes in East London sounds a lot, it's less than 1% of the current homes passed.

Wonder if they paid £300 per home passed, total £12 million, for Smallworld?

Given Liberty paid E10 billion for the 4.25 million homes passed by Ziggo this seems unlikely.

Bizarre the budget to build networks is so much lower than the one to buy them.

---------- Post added at 18:42 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------

Never actually answered this most completely.

VM also refused to extend their network to the Middleton and Hunslet areas of Leeds, despite having core network here.

The demographics in some areas of here are similar to the demographic you are alluding to.

East London is I'm sure partly economic, but probably a little political too.

No matter; at some point with the ongoing trials in Papworth VM may start using construction techniques from this millennium and hence open up new coverage areas even with their derisory spend limit.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

At a guess, there's a significant cost in marketing new build to customers, and actually connecting rather than passing them, which would account for some of the price premium paid for an existing network full of customers.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Perhaps £1 per home for a flier? VM already have the Royal Mail database.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Plus how much, for the last 10 metres of cable from the duct to the sub's house and around the skirting boards? And local radio and newspaper campaigns?

I don't know the details of the figures, but it seems to me that a built network complete with connected customers is bound to represent a substantially greater investment on the part of the network builder than the basic cost of passing x-thousand homes with new build, and a substantially more secure return on the investment if there are a good number of connected customers and a reasonable churn figure.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Entirely agree. There's the cost of CPE and the cost of the equipment either end along with the cost of the installs to the however many customers are online there.

However, I still struggle to see how this could account for the difference between £300 per home passed (remember these are homes passed not customers) and £1,500+ per home passed.

In any event it's by the by. I am not going to put any more effort into this particular project as we won't be staying in the area longer-term.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Looks like Teeside is next in line for network expansion:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...-p/2521045#M75

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Making some progress but nothing concrete.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Came across this video on youtube about different methods of deploying fibre cables. I must say I was impressed by some of the methods used which I've never seen done in this country before.

If you've got time to kill, have your fill (pardon the pun) of fibre laying methods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8bzZajwR50

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

My method of laying fibre is throw money at other people to make them do it for you.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Yours and everyone else who is selling services on said fibre.

Apart from B4RN, whose approach was largely to have volunteer retirees do the digging :)

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Heh, nobody else will be selling services on this fibre, it's a dedicated inter-campus link we had installed a few years back. We're now the proud owners of a very long trench and a hundred manholes across the city with our company name on it. Then again I don't think most individuals would be willing to pay £700,000 to get their own fibre installed...

B4RN seemed fun though

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/04/48.jpg

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Health and safety would have a field day over here with the lack of signing and guarding ect.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Thankfully in Denmark they're not as obsessive compulsive about H&S as us and can actually get civil works done?

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Nor France. One of a few reasons why HS2 seems to be costing about 9 times more per mile than their TGV.

Surprised I'm not forced to do a risk assessment before farting if I've had a curry the night before.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Not to mention France had their high-speed link from the channel tunnel to their capital (LGV Nord) open on day one, whereas it took us a good fifteen years to do the same here with HS1, despite it being less than half the length!

To be honest if you formally declared it as a work function you probably would.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

You see the kerfuffle all the well-heeled landowners and villagers are making, just because HS2 is passing within half a mile of their homes? You can multiply that by a hundred if the British government attempted to use the same methods the French do when they want to bulldoze their latest grand projet through the countryside. There are good reasons why major civil engineering projects move more slowly and cost more money in the UK, and on the whole, I think our restrictions on the State's ability to confiscate land and act regardless of local concerns is worth it.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I don't. I counter with the example here in Aberdeen where the city bypass, which is almost unanimously supported across the city and would benefit hundreds of thousands, has been held up for the better part of a decade because of one selfish prick who doesn't want it near his back yard.

Meanwhile we continue to suffer noise, pollution, traffic, and a number of people have died from fatal road accidents due to the volume of trucks ploughing through residential parts of the city.

Sure, the argument for broadband or high speed rail improving or saving lives is somewhat harder to make but the government needs stronger powers to confiscate land IMO.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

That bypass was overdue 20 years ago and I think indolence and mismanagement by the council, the Scottish office and now the Scottish "government" have all played their part. Plenty of civil projects, larger and smaller, have gone ahead, with due consideration given to local concerns, in far less time than that.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Well, I'm sure incompetence plays a part but the most recent delay was due to some case being taken all the way up to the supreme court to demand the right to object to the government's plans...

To some extent I'd prefer the system in use in Switzerland, where public policy decisions are made directly by the voting public, not the politicians. Public interest seizures and/or works should of course provide adequate compensation for those who lose property but having major projects get held up for years going around the houses in the court system over a technicality is ludicrous.

I'm still impressed how China have gone from virtually no high speed rail at all to the biggest high speed rail network in the world over the course of barely a decade. Partly helped by the government's tendency to make people disappear when they object.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Yes, you have to admire a Communist dictatorship's ability to (literally) bulldoze people out of the way ... :erm:

I'm not sure your complaints about the hold-up in Aberdeen are compatible with your admiration for Swiss-style direct democracy. The Swiss are legendary for getting nothing done at all, thanks to the number of referendums that result in a proposal being struck down.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Perhaps, but when everyone but one votes one way that one last guy does not get the opportunity to hold things up for a few years while challenging the validity of the decision.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Not always:

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/board/at...5&d=1429093193

Can you imagine the uproar in this country if that happened to a NIMBY? :D

Attachment 26065

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

It begins.

Description:
Excavate and install new Virgin Media network duct in footway and carriageway to connect properties and build associated boxes and cabinets
Start Date:
05/05/2015
End Date:
18/05/2015

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Where too? Are you a planner?

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I wouldn't have the first clue where to start as a planner.

Just your average punter.

Middleton, Leeds, LS10.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Ahhh fair enough. You seem to know your stuff, are you staff? Or just know a bit about hfc?

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

I was staff way back when.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Seems plans are in for 5th May to 2nd June. Expecting to see some more appear for back end of May in the not too distant.

Listed as part of Project Lightning, though I think all infill works have been rolled into Lightning now.

Be interesting to see how many 'bodies' VM throw at this project. Doesn't look like it's too many just yet though it is very early days in the programme.

Re: How big are VM's infills?
 

Looks like it's really starting to get going.

Project Lightning is a real thing after all. All the telephone symbols are VM network build. Started off with 2nd 2 images for May - June then ramping up with 1st picture in August. The last two are simple infill connecting to existing CMTS, etc, the first one is a combination of a couple of things. Orphan (not connected to anything) plant having chambers and cabinets built around existing ducting, cabling put into those previously built ducts, customer drops built as required, then connection to the rest of the VM network is one. Lastly new network for infill where the orphaned build abruptly stopped or cannot be used, and there is a fair amount of this too. Two of the new build streets alone are 2km worth of new network ducts; then there's cabling, cabinets and customer drops to come off that new network duct.

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/local/2015/05/9.png

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/05/10.png

https://www.cableforum.co.uk/images/...2015/05/11.png