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Originally Posted by Mr_Burns
The network has to be underground - it's in the licence granted by the Government to ntl, etc. Even BT's new network has to be underground (I think). If they could have done it overhead, they would have - it would have been a hell of a lot cheaper but it would have made the sky line look very untidy!.
The old Reddifusion network in Wales is now redundant, but the majority of Poles and cabling still remains.
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Do you realise that all the remaining poles and cables dont really exist, its a figment of your imagination!
A contractor was paid to remove all the cables and poles when ntl shut the systems down, I was involved with a small consortium trying to buy the systems from ntl at the time of closure. I obtained figures per pole and had the entire costs for shutting down the systems, this was apparently paid in full but much of the work was never completed.
There has been much talk of backhanders surrounding the closure of these networks, and the two main managers/directors involved in this deal are no longer employed by ntl
Shutting the existing VHF overhead systems in the South Wales valleys were a big mistake, the company had wayleaves and the valley towns with terraced houses and they were very cost effective to upgrade compared to large cities. The big problem was ntl's lack of understanding or possibly not wanting to understand the existing architecture in those areas, instead of using their heads and employing some technical skills to find solutions it was far easier to throw larg amounts of money at the cities. Many people with lots of years service in the cable TV industry will tell you the valleys are where the money is being made. For example the Ebbw Vale cable system had in excess of 60% penetration when it was closed down, and a few other systems had similar figures. (Remember impressive considering the manager in charge had been running them down for a number of years because he wanted redundancy for himself and sod the other 37 employees affected)
ntl played about with WHAM in Wales and later in Dolphin Square/London, as I predicted it would never go anywhere. Lack of money played a part but the main problem with ntl has always been lack of vision to look at different technologies, we used to have big problems where ntl would only stick to the original network design that was defined back in 1994. The architecture people in Hook never mooved with the times and that has cost ntl a lot of money and lost customers as a result.
Off my soapbox now
