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Originally posted by ntluser
NTL on the other hand inherited (by takeover) a variety of networks of varying technical standards and in varying states of repair. Unlike Sky, who only have to send their signals through the air to the customer, NTL were required to standardise, maintain, develop and upgrade the fibre-optic networks required to provide their services.
Because of the immense costs involved, NTL is not currently in a financial position to be able to carry out all the work required. In fairness to NTL they have tried to standardise the facilities provided by the Langley and Bromley platforms but provide them in a different technical way.
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No-one forced them to do it. Sure I agree that they have been the victim of any number of poor trading periods, however they know perfectly well how much it would cost to lay cables and how many people they could approach. As a matter of conjecture, it would be easy to argue that becuase the ntl offer was nowhere near as sophisticated at BSkyB's at that time, Sky Digital now has many many more millions of customers.
It is only now that ntl are starting to redress some of the balance, but I think that even they would agree that they are still a couple of years behind the Sky offer.
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Over time, and bear in mind that NTL is relatively young compared to Sky and BT, this situation may change.
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Not really. The earlier cable companies that I remember were forerunners to Sky. The basic (copper cable) infrastructure was already in place for many years, decades in some cases.
Don't forget also that Sky has spent huge sums of money investing in its uplink facilities, and runs quite a few tv channels too, both of which are overheads that ntl: do not have.
Don't get me wrong, I would like to see the cable service suceed. It has the potential of being a far superiour service to satellite, becuase of the two-way path. We will eventually start getting true video on demand, faster net access, VOIP, video-conferencing and so on. However I do worry that it may be too late for the incumbent.
They will not be lent the amounts of money required to invest in these technologies, given history and present financial position. Without investment in future technologies, as we have already seen, ntl will fail to deliver the subscriber figures to break even. If you don't break even, you're back at square one.
In addition to the above, one of the most important things that have got Sky to where they are today is marketing. They are very good at it. If you are very good at marketing, a lot of people will buy your product. Let's face it, ntl are not very good at marketing either.