Where Now For UK Cable?
 

This actually arose out of another thread, I posted an answer then made a huge diatribe about UK Cable.

Got rid of that and going to put it here instead.

Essentially trying to encourage some debate on where UKCable can go from here really :)

It centered around the Talk Talk deal and other special offers that are going and how it's all going on price. Why is ntl constantly discounting now, is it showing up that they can't compete in any other way?

The entire UK internet market is potentially shafted now and we're likely going to have endless clones offering mass market crap service for as low a price as possible. The hope for UK Cable is that they continue to push ADSL on speed as well as price, and innovate rather than cutting corners.

Another huge issue for UK Cable is they are making a mistake trying to compete with the a la carte broadband. If their other products were up to scratch they should be able to sell more on triple play / bundling.

However while the TV is still a poor cousin compared to Sky, the telephone and customer service not very good compared to BT, and the various deficiencies in billing, etc, remain they are stuck having to discount everything. They should be investing in enhancing their services rather than having to discount because their services can't stand up to the competition.

Losing customers that want to pay as little as humanly possible should not be considered a bad thing just because it doesn't look good on the figures. Last I checked business is about the profit you generate not the revenue and unprofitable customers shouldn't be customers.

With the advent of LLU I imagine they are probably regretting not building out more as well. However much cheaper it may be to unbundle and hope for the best it'll never be able to deliver what a modern 2 way HFC / FTTH network could.

Coverage in existing areas is for want of a better word crap as well. There are 3.17 million households in London, largest city in Europe. Thanks to a poor initial build and an inexcusable failure to build any more as new developments have gone up only 58% of those households can get triple play over cable. Thanks to ongoing investment from Bulldog, Easynet, Homechoice and Be 95% of households can get LLU service, with basically all of those being able to take an ADSL2+ service which would for most be vastly faster than ntl/Telewest's 10Mbit.

Bear in mind of course that while the cable rollout has completely ceased Easynet are planning a full build of 1000 exchanges covering 70% of the UK population, this is of course with the backing of BSkyB. Bulldog have over 800 exchanges and counting, Be have an aggressive rollout plan, as do Wanadoo and Tiscali. LLU has already surpassed cable nationwide for availability and inevitably will be overtaking it region by region as time goes on.

Of course cable has the deep fibre advantage. Then again BT have been trialling fibre to the home and VDSL with fibre to the street cabinet. When they start actually rolling that out there goes the deep fibre advantage.

We'll see if ntl can reverse the long term trend of having their backsides kicked by Sky for TV, by ADSL for broadband and by BT for telephone. Telewest have faired somewhat better nonetheless the comparison doesn't flatter them particularly either. Cable uptake in the UK is very low compared to elsewhere. Anomalously low.

Here come the stats ;)

Source http://www.ofcom.org.uk/research/cm/...ns_regions.pdf

Accurate as of 31st December 2005, which works for ntl and Telewest

Ofcom report states there are 24.77 million households in the UK.

50.8% passed by cable
45% passed by digital cable

There are 3.3 million cable TV subscribers, of which 2.6 million are digital.

98% have digital satellite available, 77% Digital Terrestrial Television.

32% of UK households have digital satellite, 21% DTT, 10% cable. Cable has a lower uptake of television services than DTT or Satellite. This gap is increasing.

Internet wise...

Source = respective companies end of quarter reports.

Telewest end of year

Broadband Internet penetration 22.2%
4.525m homes marketed
1.005 million subs

ntl

Broadband Internet penetration 25.7%
7.0884m homes marketed
1.8239 million subs

UK Cable total penetration 24.36%

BT
Broadband Internet penetration 28%
24.6709m homes serviceable
6.9 million connections

BT have around 8 million connections right now, increasing their takeup to approximately 33%.

Things don't look at their greatest for UK Cable, already in a not inconsiderable amount of debt again due to the over 4 billion USD spent buying Telewest's shareholders out along with the debt acquired from Telewest.

It's hard to see where ntl:Telewest can go from here. Obviously the powers that be do have something interesting in mind for them somewhere along the line, however all the signs point to a more competitive market all around for them, with them being squeezed more on all of their services.

I'm far from convinced that 'quadruple play' will solve anything, especially as in ntl's case they are only able to shift triple play to less than 10% of their marketable homes.

Then there's the joys that the existing CATV networks will be reaching end of life soon, and components will start to degrade. Where to from there? Will the money even be there to replace the components in a timely fashion? Ideally a fibre to the home deployment. Maybe switched CATV or ethernet to the home. We can hope so, as without something very interesting and seriously market disrupting one cannot see how cable will be able to compete.

That's my opinion anyway!

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Cheap broadband providers come and go. Promises of revolutionary speed are repeatedly made.

Yet where I am I'd probably max out at about 6mb. Download caps are useless to me so that rules out most fast internet providers ADSL.

Blueyonder has consistently offered me fast, reliable, uncapped broadband with speed upgrades almost annual now.

I'm not going to move for a theoretical speed increase to an unproven service who have little/no potential to give me a speed boost in the near future.

Cable TV may be a "poor cousin" but I've it time and again said that Telewest TV outsells Sky where customers have a choice of both. I don't know if the same is true for NTL.

Remember Sky's "8 million" includes around 700 000 in the ROI and god knows how many on the Costa Del Sol.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

None of the ROI figures were included, this was purely UK.

What you say might be the case, the Ofcom figures suggest otherwise but they aren't specific enough to say either way 100%.

LLU operators are fairly large organisations, UKOnline / Easynet and Bulldog especially are well financed and part of a much larger group. The technologies they use are mature, stable and well documented international standards.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Nice collection of figures there :tu:

but

Whereas expansion of the opposition is threugh ADSL2+, ntl are 'set' to use DOCSIS 3.0 next year. The connections that could be offered vs ADSL/2+ will batter them into oblivion.

When people have the opportunity of 24mbit vs 100mbit, that is going to sway some. This is the inherrrent advantage that cable has above LLU, that it is one step ahead with its speeds. I'm not saying that its the breadwinner all round and everybody is going to convert to cable, I'm just saying the broadband product, hopefully, will be better.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Finally someone who seems to be thinking what I am thinking.

From here it looks like ntl is in big trouble, they couldnt rollout 24mbit to compete with adsl2 without some kind of investment, 1 24mbit connection would rip apart the current technology used for the ubr's. Adsl has a good advantage for isp's in that distance will reduce speeds for most customers leaving them less of a problem with contention, but with cable if they rolled out 24meg anyone who buys it will have a line capable of the speeds.

Also like yourself I think the broadband market here has gone sour, its all focusing around cost now and everyone has gone to competing on price, we are going to be seeing near free services and anyone who tries to charge a suitable price is not going to get any market share. Bulldog who have spent large amounts in their network have not had their reward for it with a very low amount of customers yet isp's who just let their network congest more and more have users flocking to them.

Ntl appear to be out of cash, solution to full ubr's traffic shape, solution to analogue only area maybe pull out of area come analogue switch off day. solution to customers who notice how bad things are discount them. All these solutions avoid investment. I still dont understand the acquisition of telewest and the merger with virgin it appeared they had some cash available to them and they have wasted it on buying customers. They probably thought tightening things up by raising prices this year would sort out their profit, but almost at the same time the adsl market prices have plummeted which couldnt have been worse timing for them, this must have seriously lowered the value of the telewest acquisition since each customer is now worth less. Also tightening things up is useless if they continue to allow the rampant discounts been given out with no contracts whatsoever. Their earning potential is seriously hampered by having services not properly rolled out. I keep saying it again and again they should take the pain invest in their areas that need it and make all their services universal, so they have the same products available to every customer for the same price. If a customer doesnt want to pay that price then cut them loose. Only today their arrogance is evident in that the price change leaflet I got with my bill lists prices for digital tv with no mention of analogue anywhere (in an analogue only area). Ntl are behind on tv, behind on phone, and now falling behind on broadband. For a number of years they had a superior infrastructure for their broadband but due to lack of investment time has caught up with them and they have minimal upgrade potential left to give to customer.

The future? Ntl are limited by their coverage and the only way they are going to be able to compete in the future the way things are going is becoming the budget option for people because on a technical level and quality of service they are just in the slow lane.

---------- Post added at 16:25 ---------- Previous post was at 16:24 ----------

they not set to use anything, they trial alot of things including docsis3, but rolling it out is a different story and requires cash.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I look forward to the day ADSL pricing gives me the option to change for a 'better' service. Anything that gives me what I get now cheaper is welcomed no matter what the technology. I don't see it any time soon though.

These companies are having to shell out just to match cable at the minute.

Cable are currently the market leader in broadband services. I can't see them giving it up too quickly.

They could provide some kind of competition with Sky if they focussed on VOD services, especially HD VOD. Sky have made their aspirations clear with an expensive box and expensive subscription. Cable could squeeze in somewhere if they struck a deal with the terrestrial broadcasters for HD versions of BBC/ITV/C4/Five's best shows over VOD.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

OK. They have no cash. They only just bought out Virgin with how much cash?

-- kthnxgg --

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

they didn't buy Virgin with cash, they did a deal that arranged for Richard Branson to be the majority shareholder in the new company & increased the amount of money they owe. The people underwriting the deal will want paying back - that money will always paid out before any investment in infrastructure is allowed...

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

If a customer is paying say £17.50 a month for discounted 10meg broadband then I doubt they are making a loss at this. Broadband costs very little to provide, once the infrastructure is in place. They don't have to pay for content (like TV).

If they're wasting my £17.50 a month by ****ing it against a wall then I don't see why I should care.

They're doing fine at current prices. We'll probably be paying about £5 a month next year, so they'll have to cope. Perhaps they just need to shovel a few more staff out to get the overheads down more.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

There we have to disagree.

I'd describe neither cableco as market leader as their premium packages are both slower and more expensive than their ADSL equivalents.

Bulldog's 16Mbit uncapped deal is as available as cable broaband and cheaper.

UKOnline's coverage isn't as high but again faster and cheaper.

Telewest's upstream on their 10Mbit deal is pathetic and needs increasing.

---------- Post added at 21:14 ---------- Previous post was at 21:11 ----------

Actually a more appropriate point would have been that ntl had just bought out Telewest with how much cash...

Therein lies the problem. They paid 4 billion USD in cash, over a billion in shares and took on a fair whack of assumed debt.

The combined company is now worth 7 billion USD.

Most of the above wasn't cash from the bank, it was debt. Again rather than invest in infrastructure, etc, ntl ****ed away their cash on acquisition.

They need to get the cost reductions going as ntl still aren't a profitable business and they need to get profitable and get investing fairly rapidly.

Of more concern is that some of the things that made Telewest more profitable are being chopped in the name of attracting customers. One particular thing of note being that while Telewest do actually credit check customers and will refuse to install to those who present a risk ntl will quite happily install to anyone regardless. Telewest employees are getting the same targets as ntl ones now, even though they have different criteria. ntl have been known to let people off of arrears on their bills to retain them as customers. Again the figures are everything, apart from the profit column.

---------- Post added at 21:19 ---------- Previous post was at 21:14 ----------

Indeed. For now. BT's 'autumn trial' this year is probably going to be VDSL. Then you have the FTTH trials. As I stated above BT will as part of 21CN be trialling deeper fibre into their network.

Worth remembering that while rollouts are 'on the road map' we don't know how the trials are going yet.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

market leader? sounds like ntl's pr team.

If the market leader is 0.5mbit speeds in the evenings then the uk broadband market really is in a dire state.

it does cost money to provide broadband in the form of traffic and providing the modems as well as supporting the service, granted the modems are very cheap but if you are downloading anything above a few gig a month then ntl are probably not making anything worthwhile from you as a discounted customer.

what I dread is if ntl win premiership football rights in 2007 because right now I can get it via sky sports, if ntl get rights they will likely stick it on a channel that is only available on the digital platform and cutoff even more of their customers from a service.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

My broadband connection is 4MB uncapped and rarely deviates when using websites that have enough bandwidth.

Maybe I'm just on the wrong exchange, but I just had a look and all Bulldog can offer me is 2MB unlimited broadband. Same with UKOnline and Be won't even sell me anything. Great for the people who do have the choice but I'm not one of them. I wonder if part of the reason cables broadband is slower is the fact they know what proportion of their customers can actually get these services.

I don't exactly live in the middle of nowhere either.

The cable co. has more broadband customers than any other ISP, so that was why I used the term "market leader".

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

OK, I apologise if If I came across as if it was free cash flow :) However, as the direct competitor though I am not aware of how profitable operations of the BT Group are, they don't exactly owe nothing either.

OK the day FTTH comes with BT.....................I will get it ;)

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

FTTH ?

Fibre to the home ?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Yes.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

They paid very little cash to merge with Virgin, it was mostly shares.

There's an issue of critical mass though, at some point some cash from a customer rather than none is the main thing.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

If the cost of providing to an individual customer outstrips the revenue that is likely to come from that customer they should never be supplied.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

My mum was talking about the Talk Talk free broadband offer - her area is non-cable. The big print says 8MB whereas the small print says that the speed will be the best they can offer :erm: It's a bit like those mystery boxes for a £5 :D

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Whats critical mass supposed to mean?

I cant see how 1000 customers providing say £10k profit a year is better then 100 customers providing say £15k profit a year, end of the day they are supposed to make money and enough so they can reinvest to improve the service as well.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Umm right.

Presumably you have consistently missed the 'up to' in all the cable speed ads. Even the small print. Yeah you may get your full speed all the time, some don't. They've no recourse as speeds aren't guaranteed.

Actually you missed the 'up to' on the front page of the TalkTalk website as well. Really who cares either, it's virtually free and probably going to be faster than the 4Mbit or 1Mbit that most ntl customers have.

Anyway this rather dull and well used pop at DSL seen about 3 million times from cable fans when discussing DSL in general is not really on topic. Not sure if it was an attempt at humour or not but still never mind, on with the main topic :)

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

If there are too few customers no matter how much cash they generate (within reason, after all customers will only pay so much) it won't be worth running all the equipment and staff.

Ntl must have a set figure of customers where it becomes completely useless to continue. At least if they keep the customers they can flog them additional services (Mobile, sport/movies, BB+).

If you're talking about just BB and phone once the stuff is installed there must be minimal continual spend on the customer. If Talktalk can still make money on these customers (even with a new connection), even if it does take 18 months, then Ntl must be able to (as they are already with them).

Saying that Ntl should (if they ever had any business sense) be locking people into 18 month contracts so they can actually make some money back.

The issue of bandwidth can't be that bad with Ntl or they wouldn't be making their connections unlimited.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

However the technical superiority of the cable line over copper wire is that "up to" applies to most ADSL customers.

With lower contention ratios it is more likely cable customers have closer to the advertised rate.

And it still only applies to ADSL customers if you have a capable exchange.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Contention is nothing until it becomes visible.

DSL has a fundamental advantage in that the last mile is dedicated bandwidth between customer and DSLAM, and backhauls tend to be larger than the current 38 Mbps max cable offers each segment.

For example my own ISP has 1Gbps shared between its' customers on my exchange. Most of a

Not really appropriate to say that cable has a lower or higher contention ratio, the contention bottleneck on DSL is further away from the customer and easier to upgrade usually. The flipside obviously is that cable brings a higher max bandwidth to the consumer.

You've actually completely contradicted the 'commonly held wisdom' around cable and DSL. The usual argument is that while DSL offers a more stable speed cable offers a higher but less stable maximum.

The availability argument isn't really much of one. Because so little of the country is covered and enabled for broadband internet these unbundled services are as available as cable modem service, if not more so, and will certainly be more available within 6 months.

EDIT: I also think you've misunderstood what the 'up to' part means. It's actually more of a reference to the distance limits that ADSL has, IE unlike cable there is no active network so the speed achievable degrades the further one is from the operator's equipment. In cable's case if you are on 10Mbit then so long as all is working ok and the bandwidth is available you'll get 10Mbit, on DSL if you are within x KM of the exchange you'll get 10Mbit, a little further away 9, etc.

That's a cable advantage, but it's been undone somewhat by the ADSL2+ rollout and 'relatively' short lines in the UK meaning that most of the people in cable areas are usually able to get more than 10Mbit/s over ADSL2+ services.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I understood that fine. At the end of the day ADSL cannot offer me, and probably many others in cabled areas uncapped services as fast as cable broadband. Even if they upgraded my exchange, at my distance I'd be lucky to get 6mb (something I expect from telewest in the near future). Then I'd be stuck in a 12 month contract and have a choice later of going back to cable or waiting for another exchange upgrade.

I look forward to the day ADSL can compete and it will bring down prices. However until they do compete and cable see a mass exodus of customers they will probably do nothing.

There is no point in cable competing their services with widespread availability against a future advance with limited availability at this stage.

When the ADSL ISPs make their promises a reality I'm sure cable will react.

LLU is great if you are in London, however elsewhere its availability is much lower.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I guess you haven't seen the huge thread regarding the discounts ntl are dishing out in response to the TalkTalk deal. Cable is 'kinda' competing against that already and TalkTalk haven't started connecting huge amounts of people yet.

Check this out: http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2643

LLU is a lot more available than you think, and rollouts are still being done, virtually all of that rollout outside of London.

Yes due to line lengths DSL can't match cable on a number of lines, however for value and Mbps per £ the formula does change a bit.

BTW why aren't you correcting me on how cable offers lower contention and more consistent speeds, seeing as I directly disagreed? ;)

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Yes up to a point, in some cases what you say makes sense if you a small isp starting out you often need to loss lead get customers on the books then sell them more services.

If you already the largest provider in the country tho then I fail to see the need to offer discounts for life or rolling discounts that last for years to customers who have no intention of spending more money and will be a loss leader for life. In this case just tell the customer to pay full whack and leave. Their is no advantage in keeping the customer other then to gloat about customer count. Maybe ntl think they will be able to get all these customers signing up to virgin mobile services (since most probably are already triple play) who knows but profit is more important then head count especially in ntl's case. They paying the price now for limited coverage of the country and they as a result will have limited penetration.

---------- Post added at 16:04 ---------- Previous post was at 16:00 ----------

Every LLU line I have played on the speeds have been nothing short of amazing and no sign of contention anywhere, this is on both ukonline and bulldog, the 1gig limited bandwidth is certianly a lot more impressive then a shared 27mbit.

I agree if ntl could "really" compete they wouldnt need to offer cash incentives.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I'm sure there are more rollouts being done but until that is the case then it is purely theoretical for me anyway.

Until ADSL offers more than 2MB for me, and people in this reasonable sized town in central scotland, it is a no-brainer to go to the cable services.

I'm not particularly bothered about the ADSL v Cable debate, and more competition is certainly a good thing if it means cheaper internet but there is no competition in my area or many others outside London.

LLU will not necessarily mean 24MB for everyone any time soon.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

They're delusional if that's the plan. Inspite of the endless bundling pimping 29% of original ntl customers take triple play, 37.4% of originally Telewest customers (as of end of 2005).

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

First of all I don't wish to discredit your knowledge on these things as you obviously know more about some of the more intricate things then I do ;)

Lets look at it like this. DSL has two factors involed in you getting the speed. Line length and contention of pipe from DSLAM to ISP.

Cable has the single factor of contention from customer to CMTS. I would like to think core is a situation that doesn't require as much thought as the access networks, after all 'Plusnet issues' don't appear to be apparent on ntl.

So yes, a telephone loop is not shared like cable and cable does not have the same contention point. However channel bonding can negate the smaller share, even though its a wonder now to those who cannot monitor a uBR of its usage, how a DOCSIS 1.1 64QAM system can hold the the allocate users on a card and still can see 10mbit, so I cannot see why the same cannot be said when the speeds are higher offered on a system which has greater aggregate bandwidth with somewhat the same ratio. Not to mention the evil traffic shaping gear they have too ;)

BT's 21 CN network of bringing fibre closer to the home, well ntl is already there with fibre to the node. So if we are going to compare upgrades, BT are moving fibre up to negate the effects of line length and try and offer better speeds come ADSL2+, VDSL2 or whatever else there is by then, as opposed to ntl who are making use of the existing bandwidth that is already there. In fact, even before channel bonding, I know ntl are using a second downstream in one area that isn't Guildford.

It cannot be denied that the gigabits of bandwidth available on coax networks is there, its just not being used, whether that be due to finance, technology, needed technology upgrades or dumbass management. I'm guessing possibly all four with ntl :( :p:

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

NTL could give every household their own private 1000mbit line for all I care, as soon as you left the NTL network the crap peering would make it useless.

Where now for UK Cable ?
Nowhere unless their links to other networks are massively expanded, 10 meg unlimited will probably make a bad situation into a catastrophe :(

The DSL connections I have used on this area stay at the same rate to all destinations at all times of the day, NTL's is awful at night, great during the day.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

About bloody time to be honest.

Yep I never argued that the deep fibre advantage was there, covered it right at the start of the thread in fact, however if it's not taken advantage of before the competition catches up then there are problems.

So far it hasn't really been taken advantage of, which is why cable has always hung in there rather than being ahead of the game so far.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I think the winning network will be the one that offers value for money, not a cheap broadband service.

Customers will look at the overall offering, and decide that paying for a service that has:

1. An excellent up time
2. Regularly consistent speeds
3. A competent and fast customer support system
4. Value added products (i.e Good AV and security services, bandwidth monitoring etc.)

Whether that will be ntl:Telewest is yet to be seen.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

At present Taiwan has 2 million subscribers at 50 - 100 bps. the UK....
NTL has lost the plot.

BTW is NTL going HD?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

right so their is no contention on their peering links?
no contention on the proxy servers? (we have one each wow)
who knows where else their is contention playing a part on ntl's network, stories of overloaded core etc.

NTL have been using bonding in guildford already then? sorry but one area outside of trial doesnt exactly make me jump with joy, if you tell me 50 areas I might be thinking ntl are serious about rolling it out.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I never said it was only in one area, I know it is being tested in one area. Thats not saying that customers are using it. I don't work for ntl Chrysalis so don't ask me questions I blatantly don't know.

I never referred to possible issues to peering links for any other ISP which isn't ntl did I? I don't know what you are going on about proxy servers for, I type in an address and 98 times out of 100 it will get there.

We are talking about the actual ability to offer speeds over access networks, not whether you can get that actual thoroughput over from New York or somewhere.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

It's an interesrting time for UK cable but it always is isn't it.

To me, the main problem for cable is the TV product which is always way behind Sky. The problem is that people pay more for cable TV but get fewer channels and fewer services and there always seems to be problems (the PRESS RED issue is the latest, last year it was the STB changing at random). Sky has done it very well and gives free add-on insentives to people who take premium channels such as Sky+ and content via broadband. Telewest charges extra for their PVR and I would imagine ntl will too. Therefore, with Sky you would pay £40 per month for the premium channels and the Sky+ but with cable you are paying £60 to £70 for the same because you are also forced to have the telephone line plus you don't get all the interactive stuff which you get with satellite such as Sky News interactive, News 24 interactive, Sky Sports interactive etc and, of course, the broadband Sky Sports stuff is only for satellite customers.

As well as all that, the channel line-up continues to lag way behind Sky. Once again, a number of major channels are now missing - examples include ESPN Classic, Player, TCM2, cartoon Network 2, CITV, True Movies, Sky Three, Travel, Artsworld, Performance, The Chart Show music channels and if you include all the less attractive channels and niche channels for specific groups such as ethnic minorities, the gay channels plus all the radio stations then Sky has more than double the number of channels that cable has, possibly even triple the number, for a lower price per month.

Yes I know people will say that VOD is something Sky cannot do directly but many areas can't get it and it is a chargeable add-on rather than an extra as part of the subscription like Sky's broadband content is.

To me, the problem is that cable is always playing catch-up to Sky and that cable seems to be about 2-3 years behind Sky in terms on TV rather than being innovative and ahead of Sky.

In terms of telephone, again BT offers stuff as part of the line rental which ntl charges for, such as caller display and an itemised telephone bill so if I changed I'd be £2 per month worse off with ntl telephone than I would be with BT and that's before the higher ntl call charges (yes 1p/call isn't a vast amount but it soon adds up) and the fact that ntl is to charge people to call custoemr services, something BT again offers free. I have never had any problems with the reliability of the BT service, never had a bad line and never had a problem making a telephone call. Can;t comment about ntl telephone line but I;'d be amaed if it was as reliable given that when I had a cable telephone service a few years ago I found it almost impossible to make an outgoing call.

As for internet, I would have to change ISPs which I am not going to do but ntl intenret always seems to get it wrong and gets a laod more flack than other ISPs do - examples include the download cap. It is true that cable internet is up there with the other ISPs but they never seem to quite get thigns right. Can't comment on reliability but I'd never have ntl internet.

What happens in the next year or so when the merger with TW is sorted followed by the introduction of the Virgin brand remains to be seen but cable is still the inferior product when compared to its rivals and is seen to be the inferior product by people at large plus the fact you pay mroe and get less with cable than you do with Sky/BT. I guess we'll see what happens in the future but it will take a lot more than the introduction of ther Virgin brand to turn thigns around for cable.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

If you dont know then why you telling people ntl are doing this and that in the future and they are opening up second downstream channels?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I'm just going by what I've been told.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

i cant speak for other area's but that seems wrong on several points (nothing against you james you understand) in my area, wythenshawe,south manchester (right in the heart of manchester airport), the so called largest 'garden city' in europe has in excess of 34,000+ council houses, probably near the same again in combined private houses/shops/business with currently around 76,000+ people with a potential of 110,000+, virtually every single house has nynex/C&W installed cable running past it with cabs on every other corner, with the main baguley center (is that classed a main hub for NTL operations like the other two mentioned all the time?)a mile away.

its fair to claim wythenshawe as a major potential customer base for NTL,
NTL do perform credit checks on all new customers every time here,and i think thats plain wrong considering your always paying the direct-debit at least 2 or 3 weeks in advance of any due bill and by definition always in credit by default.

the most stupid rules concerning their direct cashflow/income are whats keeping customer No.s far lower than they need be, this rule is the fact that they refuse to take cash payments for the broadband.

dont take my word for it, walk up to any saleman in your local high street/civic center and they will ask if your a customer etc, tell them your interested in broadband and want to pay 'a month upfront in cash' and continue to pay by cash, they will say 'ntl do not allow it in any way' and press you to pay by DD and or CC,tell them you dont have a bank/BS account, but stress the point about you will pay upfront 'two months cash' if thats ok just to get the service you want, again they repeat the same mantra, 'NTL do not allow it in any way'. its the same with several NTL sales people on the phone over several days too, so its not just the wythenshawe civic center staff.

iv also been informed that this only appys to the stand alone modem,
they also said you can infact pay cash as your inital payment for the 3 for 30 package (and even pay by paypoint card NTL will issue you to pay the subsquent bills at any paypoint shop if you want) alas thats not confirmed as fact.

what is fact hower is i (and at least 4 people i know)asked about the 3 for 30 package as well as the stand alone modem and got the exact same 'ntl do not allow it in any way', so eather ntl 'dont', or 'dont but do' take cash payments depending on the truth and who you try and sign you up for an inital package, eather way its wrong they discriminate against cash (or paypoint for that matter) customers.

the simple fact is ntl are loosing 100's perhaps 1000's + of new customers because they do not take cash (coin of the realm) as a valid payment for inital install, you might wonder what the investers and commercial bankers would make of this ntl rule if they know about it,i know i do.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Actually, that's not true. Not all content on VOD is charged, and Sky's broadband is only free if you take movies or sports channels.

Sky have several advantages over UK Cable, which allow them to innovate more easily.

1. They have the backing of one of (if not the) largest multimedia corporation on the planet. News Corp.
2. They have less hardware/software to upgrade. Even ignoring the STBs, to launch a new service, Sky may have to upgrade a few uplink sites (if any) and their broadcast facilities. UK Cable may have hundreds of sites to update (all the head ends need upgrading for VOD for example). It's also worth noting that if the service requires extra hardware on the STB (such as a hard drive), the Cable Co's have hundreds of STBs to replace. Sky tend to require that the user buy their own. Admittedly, UK Cable could also require this, and save themselves a whole lot of money, but they don't seem willing.
3. Satellite is (by definition) a relatively cheap way to reach millions of viewers (all you need is some comms hardware and a transponder or two on a satellite). Cable has a few downlink sites, hundreds of head ends, thousands of street cabinets and tens of thousands of miles of cable.
   
   
   

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I see going by your post in http://forum.digitalspy.co.uk/board/...d.php?t=370991 the issues of methods of payment are an emotive one for you.

However ntl do I guess consider the money they save by not processing cash payments as being well worth it for them.

As far as the credit issue goes just repeating what I was told by a Telewest employee, a rather narked one at that mind you.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

And Cable has one killer advantage that it is sadly failing to exploit - a broadband return path.

Cable interactive services should knock $ky into a cocked hat, but they don't. NTL's interactive shortcomings have been rehearsed on this forum ad infinitum so I will refrain from doing so again, but you know of what I speak ... :disturbd:

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

True, NTL's interactive services do lead an awful lot to be desired. However, I don't think that is *entirely* NTL's fault. I think the broadcasters have a lot to answer for there.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

They're responsible for ntl's awful interactive services, whereas Sky's are far superior?

Actually I would blame bad decisions from ntl over which software, middleware and hardware to use.

Presumably you can explain why Freeview has superior broadcast interactive services to ntl as well?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

All I know is that when I looked (seriously) into developing interactive stuff, Sky wanted a huge amount of money before they would even talk to me, whereas NTL GAVE me all the software needed, and give me access to a special interactive test server (to point the liberate emulator at). They also gave me extensive technical support. All for free.

The liberate middleware is actually far more capable than the current implementations of interactive would suggest, hence my comment about the broadcasters being responsible. However, it does need a fast STB to work at a reasonable speed. Hence my comment about it not being entirely NTL's fault (the implication being that NTL must take some of the blame).

As for freeview, well, when I looked into interactive, that wasn't available.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Stuart also ntl are having to support different types of networks/services because they wont integrate their services into 1 universal service, which is ultimately raising their costs and reducing quality of service.

---------- Post added at 18:26 ---------- Previous post was at 18:24 ----------

are ntl to blame if the customer has analogue only service tho? would be interested to know if interactive is possible on analogue.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

True, although NTL are stuck between a rock and a hard place there. It costs a lot to operate all those different services, but would also cost an awful lot to upgrade

Well, I did say *entirely*. I do think NTL could do a lot more to improve the customer side of interactive.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Yep its a short term gain and long term loss.

Lets take a 5 year period of increased support/maintenance costs, increased retention costs (keeping customers on inferior services), loss of customers due to inferior services so loss of profit, increased training costs for staff having to train on more types of network/services, increased advertising costs having to print out more prices etc. for different services. Put this VS a one off large cost of upgrading and merging areas so is one playing field across their footprint.

NTL can then start doing things like this.

10meg broadband/family digital tv pack with VOD/tu24 available in ALL OUR AREAS, not distance dependant all for only 49.99 a month.

Sky would find it hard to match that since you getting a phone/vod/10 meg broadband which performs well due to downstream channel bonding made possible by not having to support analogue channels, whilst bt/sky have to contend with poor long phone lines etc. VOD which sky dont have i think and the ability to change your broadband package online instantly. Ntl need to play to their strengths they potentially could lead the market in many aspects of service but just dont know how to play the game.

Add to that people will then start to want ntl for their normal prices (not discounted) and ntl might actually make profit again, redesign the product portfolio so you can things seperatly but they cost a lot more, for examply sky allow the subscription of sky sports extra on its own but it costs a nice £6 a month whilst as an incentive to get their premium packages they throw it in free with sky sports 1+2.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Nonsense - BT's 21CN is NOT about rolling out FTTK/FTTH at all. All the 21CN does is upgrade the network in the exchanges to an IP network, to save they cash in the long term.

BT have already said they are NOT going to delpoy fibre in the short to medium term.

We will not be seeing Fibre for many many years from BT.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Yeah, I misremebered, obviously.

I believe ntl are doing something along the same lines, migrating from TDM to IP?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

BT are migrating Business Customers over to Ethernet via Fibre (As NTL are). The next step is to migrate their rezzy subs, it will take a long time, but its happening !
BT's is called 21CN, ours is called Met Net, both ot them are connected

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Last I heard BT are refusing to do fibre rollouts without assurances they will have to open up the network which leaves it a kind of stalemate situation.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

BT needs splitting in two. Only a proper division of the wholesale and retail businesses can solve the ridiculous, schizophrenic approach the company takes to decisions like this. What we need is a BT wholesale business that is free to sell its services on equal terms and to make investment decisions for its own business benefit, and not with one eye on giving the Retail division an advantage.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I understood BT were trying to get out of opening their "new" parts of the network, as they claimed it was nothing to do with the original assets of the public sector.

I did and still do, think its very unfair to be forced into allowing other providers use your network. This puts BT at a disadvantage, BT may be a large company like many that people hate, but there is nothing fair about a government forcing this issue.

If you buy a company, the government should not come along later and expect you to give things away to other companies that you have paid for after the purchase.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

It's a clever argument, but the new bits of their network would be worthless if they couldn't tie them into the old bits that were privatised. And they wouldn't have the money to invest in the new bits if they didn't have a massive guaranteed market thanks to their former utility status. As I said, the solution to this is to do what British Gas realised it needed to do years ago, and split the infrastructure from the retail business. That way BT Wholesale can sell what they want to whom they want without any bother.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Any new FTTH deployment would be connected to networks which didn't exist when privatisation happened. The IP networks weren't around at that time.

Actually the DSL network apart from that last mile copper wasn't around when BT was privatised either.

From BT's point of view why should they invest billions then be told how much they can and can't charge for use of the networks. If they were to be told that the FTTH network would be regulated then there's no reason why ntl's network shouldn't be opened up as well.

Also I don't fancy paying the extra taxes in compensating BT's shareholders for unilaterally shafting their investment to be honest. We pay enough for nothing without doing things like that.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Maybe, but what rollout and investing have ntl done over the last few years?

Significantly less then BT.

The future of BT still looks a lot brighter then for uk cable, its making healthy profits, has huge coverage and can upgrade its technology when it wants.

Can the same be said for uk cable?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I accept those three points. However, what people see is the prodct and not the stuff you describe. What I see is that I would pay £50 per month for the Sky Sports digital package if I allowed ntl to charge me that much whereas for the same package on Sky I would pay less than £40, get Sky+ for free, have access to Sky Sports VOD via my broadband connection, have all the Sky Sports interactive stuff and be able to watch more than double the numebr of channels whilst paying 25% less than ntl charge me and given that ntl is boudn to charge for its PVR then I'd be paying £60 per month compared to £35 pm on Sky and still not get all those extra channels and the sports VOD stuff despite paying almost double.

As for the VOD, I accept that the catch-up is not a chargeable add-on but I believe that the programmes offered are very small in number and change meaning that often you would not be able to watch a series on VOD because the final episodes would not be available.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

it be nice if they got a government grant or sumthing as it has to be good ofr the economy instead of spending £14k on shery blairs hair cut. why not invest ?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Sorry I don't see why my tax money should go towards propping up a private company. If they can't organise their business properly and competitively they should be out of business.

Don't really see how ntl getting public money would benefit the economy either, apart from perhaps the Indian one from the outsourced staff and the US one from the shareholders' capital gains.

BTW The money for Cherie Blair's hair styling came from Labour party coffers, not the public purse.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

i think be god for the econmy if we ever got %100 high speed internet coverage, and personaly i wud rather my tax go on sumthing like internet investment rather than the doleys n all the other stuff people get, e.g. free lives

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I 100% agree with you - best for tax money to go for something worthfile - eg a Nationwide FTTK deployment instead of all these benefits people get so easily.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I'm all for the "Three R's" myself.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Ntl need to tighten things up. Stick 100% to a pricing plan and communicate this to the userbase. They should then stuff the outsourcing and focus on tight regional based faults and customer service. (why a bloke in swansea would appreciate why its not possible to drag a tech form darlington to Redacr is beyond me).

Back to digital TV, this is uber basic computing gone mad. Interactive services is computing from the early 90's over a different medium. Nothing more complex than that. I stood up for myself the other week stating that one of the key parts of my industry is based on a database. Whilst it is a very complex database its 'just a database' The same thing I learned at college how to do.

Interactive services should be a doddle to create and with ntl's network should far outshine sky. They need to bring things back in house and get some pride in the product they supply or the good staff they have will leave for bettter things.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I agree that it should but it doesn't and never has. Sky makes things work but ntl never does.

Also, it would be good if ntl didn't increase prices every three months!

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

We have nearly 100% coverage already, some of this has been achieved through limited public - private partnerships.

With all due you're at college and only work weekends, perhaps you'd like to try paying income tax before you complain about where it goes and maybe the rest of us would like it if our taxes weren't paying for part of or all of your education but such is life. I see next to nothing for the over £1000/month that Mr Brown siphons from my pay let alone the other taxes he stings me for, which is why I'm moving elsewhere.

I could easily have the 'up yours' attitude as in theory I'm one of the people who puts money into the economy, and yes I'd be far better off not supporting chavs and layabouts, but I don't as there are some people who really do need that tax. Don't really see why you do especially as you aren't yet one of the people enjoying Mr Brown's hand in your pocket. Quite a cynical attitude really.

Nonetheless the welfare state is there for a reason and I hope you never have to use it but you really never know. If you do have to use it at some point hopefully it'll give you a different appreciation of why it is there. Don't write off everyone who uses it, some people really don't have any choice. When you look at how high tax bills are at the moment supplying an uber internet connection to every home is really poor value, there's a very large list of things that need doing first, such as a nationwide initiative against txt spk and putting some more cash into education in general. Did you know that a number of employers are having problems employing school / college and even uni leavers here? In the words of an employer I spoke to 'We aren't asking for the Earth, just candidates that can read, write and do basic maths to a reasonable standard. Is that too much to ask?'

---------- Post added at 16:43 ---------- Previous post was at 16:21 ----------

In what way is that worthwhile exactly? We'll have FTTK within 5 years anyway. FTTH is really the only game in town. Incidentally what does worthfile mean?

I have no problem at all with local councils borrowing money in order to build their own fibre optic networks however the idea of the government using tax payer's money and doing it nationwide is a sensationally bad idea. It would put ntl out of business at a stroke and force BT to severely downsize. Then there's the question of who gets to run the network? We know what a great job the Government would do of it. I think they've their nose in quite enough already thanks.

Personally I'd rather the ntl old boys' club at Ofcom let BT build the FTTH network they want to build and not force them to unbundle it in the name of the competition that's set to bring us a huge collection of crap quality services to choose from. If you want to know why we've no FTTH/K look no further than their office.

Just look at what the US allowing Verizon to build a FTTH network without unbundling it has done. Much more competitive offers where it's been rolled out.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

remember that next time you lose your job eh or fall ill?

I agree with james henry perhaps the only way I would think it was fair for the government to invest is if straings are attached e.g. 50% of the resulting turnover is recieved as tax income, if the company tries to bail out via bankrupty government takes ownership and all execs to prison for wasting taxpayers cash :D

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

James Henry and I never said that everyone on the welfare was exploiting it because they were lazy - I 100% agree that it is needed and many people rightfully depend on it.

What I dont like is the majority of people who claim job seekers and all sorts of benefits, when they could get a job if they got off their butt to look for one. This debate is way OT, so thats the last I will comment on this.

"We'll have FTTK within 5 years anyway. " - Who will have FTTK in 5 years? Everyone? Where is your data for this?

"Personally I'd rather the ntl old boys' club at Ofcom let BT build the FTTH network they want to build and not force them to unbundle it in the name of the competition that's set to bring us a huge collection of crap quality services to choose from. If you want to know why we've no FTTH/K look no further than their office."

Yeh I 100% agree with you again. I think its really unfair for ofcom to expect BT to invest billions and let people use it for the price ofcom decide.

Surely Ofcom realise that BT will never invest in the local loop unless ofcom give them exclusive use of it? :confused:

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Locky I was reffering to heh.

---------- Post added at 00:41 ---------- Previous post was at 00:40 ----------

Like you said tho if the 'ntl fanboys' at ofcom allowed BT to rollout fibre suddenly ntl themselves will need to invest and they cant have that.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

chrysalis if i lose my job or fall ill i will be ok for a few month at home i have money put aside i will NEVER go onto the dole if that is what you are suggesting i am no scrounger thanks, i duno why you all gota critisize me all the time :/

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

What a comment - I'd reply but it's way OT and I'd get banned! :afire:

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

same

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Im sorry but UKOnline's service is very very poor and unreliable. It took 3 months to get installed in the first place. Then when I finally got connected it randomly goes down a few times a day with no explaination from them.

I have not heard great things about bulldog either. Just because something is "cheaper and faster" does not mean it is better. I get far better connection speeds from my ntl 10meg connection.

When you convert over to ADSL2+ it also increases your latency. My latency on the cable connection is around 10-20ms all the time.

LLU is possibly the worst thing to happen in terms of UK customer satisfaction. I do not know anyone who is 100% happy with their LLU connection.

As soon as my contract with UKOnline is up im going to shut down the line and just get a 2nd NTL SACM.

---------- Post added at 09:53 ---------- Previous post was at 09:50 ----------

What about people who dont have the chance to work and dont have money put aside. Many people loose their jobs through no fault of their own. Look at what is going on at Vauxhalls at the moment. When these people go onto the dole, are they scroungers because they cant find work? Many of them have gone into taxi driving, which is not as well paid! It causes massive problems with local economies.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I would disagree. My own LLU connection's reliability, speed and uptime has been excellent and ADSL2+ doesn't mean that pings go up automatically, there are different modes.

I would imagine I'm not the only satisfied customer too :)

Pinging www.bbc.net.uk [212.58.224.121] with 32 bytes of data:

Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=7ms TTL=245
Reply from 212.58.224.121: bytes=32 time=8ms TTL=245

Ping statistics for 212.58.224.121:
Packets: Sent = 4, Received = 4, Lost = 0 (0% loss),
Approximate round trip times in milli-seconds:
Minimum = 7ms, Maximum = 8ms, Average = 7ms

Pings slightly high due to wireless, using the wired takes a ms or so off :)

Locky is a college student. May I suggest that the gentleman grows up a bit, gets a mortgage, bills, commitments, possibly a family then after actually trying it out tells the rest of us about the real world. A 'bit put aside' doesn't last long when you're paying a grand a month just to keep a roof over your head.

If you lose your job through gross misconduct or quit it you don't get anything. Personally I see no problem with people who've paid thousands in National Insurance getting something back from time to time and find it quite offensive someone who isn't even paying tax telling those of us who do that we are scroungers for having been on the dole. I have been briefly after losing my job, hated having to do it but was told not to be so proud and was required as if I didn't do it I couldn't claim insurance. I guess that makes me a scrounger too.

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I can obviously only talk for myself and people I know but obviously there is going to be some satisfied customers, lol.

The guy is obviously an idiot, I didnt realise the full situation before hand either and I thought his post was completely rubbish then.

I have claimed dole before inbetween jobs before and personally do not see any problem with doing it because unlike real scroungers. I had to have paid so much tax and national insurance to be allowed to claim. As you correctly pointed out you can not just go and claim dole anymore like you used to be able to. They want full explainations why you lefts your job, etc. It is then sent off for approval by another advisor before they are willing to give you a penny.

I wonder if he actually knows the cost of living?

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

Re: Where Now For UK Cable?
 

I have chosen bulldog as my next broadband isp since it is LLU, and 90% of what I heard about the LLU side of bulldog is good, they dont have most of the problems inherit to BT wholesale ADSL. Granted they have billing problems but that I can live with. 0800 support as well :) Latency may increase for me but I expect it to be a lot more stable, on my cable it can vary heavily.