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Originally Posted by poolking
Shouldn't it be called Voodoo On Demand? I think NTL would need a lot of magic to get it off the ground. 
Didn't someone on CF comment that part of NTLs network had been condemned when a VOD team investigated the viability of VOD? |
Yes, I did.
The people from Glasgow condemned the network and the hubsites, most of the problems were historical money savings that went on in Wales. I think the regional head of networks and planning got bonuses for coming in under budget for new build in those days. Many corners were cut, and without going into too much detail I once kitted out a new site only too see half of the equipment removed, then it was all refitted again within a few months as part of an upgrade.
Much of the money saving was down to one manager, we had authority for upgrading equipment because parts of the hubsites were built using what they had to hand instead of ordering the correct equipment, the local manager ignored the regional directors decision and never placed the orders.
I guess it's hard to comprehend but places like Glasgow did very well, they had more employees per customer than Wales and money was spent a lot freely. So now there is a lot of problems that many of us knew would come back to haunt them, it happened with cable modem implementation and we knew it would happen with VOD. I was involved locally with the proposed VOD implementation just after ntl mass "planning for growth" redundancies, before they went into chapter 11 they signed a deal with Diva and I think promised them $10M around the same time they signed a deal with another company that I went to work for about $10M as well. I was told the same ntl director signed both deals and didn't have the authority, when ntl went into chapter 11 both these companies lost their money and their deals.
I know nothing much about callcentres or Swansea technical support or billing etc, but I do know about the state of the networks and headends/Hubsites in many areas.
The current VOD deal involves Scientific Atlanta for RF/Optical equipment, SeaChange (spelling?) for servers and software, Harmonic Lightwave (as SA) and Cotswold Communications are wiring the sites.
The deal has been financed by the vendors, as ntl have no way of paying for it.
