What is so sad in all this is how the cable franchises were created in the first place. What should be the jewel in the cable crown, London, is a patchwork of several networks using out of date technology and delivering third rate services. The most powerful and wealthy people live in London (especially Westminster) but can they spend some of their millions on VOD or broadband? No, because some of the differing networks haven't been upgraded yet.
It could've have been so diffrent....
In the 80's, rather than allowing companies their own exclusive patches, any company should've been allowed to lay down cable and run services over it. What I think would have happened is that the big North American cable cos like Nynex,TCI,Videotron and the Baby Bells would've, at first, concentrated all their efforts in laying cable in London and other big cities like Manchester and Birmingham. In the large cities you would have had several cable cos directly competiting with each other as well as BT. This would have led to, I think, better services being offered much earlier and would have forced BT to roll out services like broadband much quicker too than they actually have done. The cable cos would've had to of kept uprading their networks to offer the "latest thing" and keep the prices down to consumers. I believe the cable cos would've moved into profit very quickly only serving the large cities. Eventually the companies would've consolidated at that point into perhaps 2 or 3. Then and only then, the cable cos would've began to move into other parts of the country laying cable into towns and smaller built-up areas.
Under that scenerio, there would have been no merging of lots of smaller networks and all the costs that have incurred. And once 2 or 3 cable cos emerged out of the cities, the cable companies would have been large enough to gain better deals with hardware/channel suppliers, thus reducing costs further. Perhaps they would've had their own premium tv content by now if this had happened, rather then drooling at Sky's or Setanta's premium sports. Although, ntl could buy Setanta today if wished...
The reason I say all this, is look at the BT local-loop unbundling and the effect that diffrent ASDL resellers have had on the broadband market. Becuase of the fierce competition, companies have had to innovate and keep prices down. Would ntl really be trialling 20mb now if it wern't for other companies already offering, albeit limited, 24mb services? I don't think so. Just think if there were a few big nationwide cable companies slugging it out, what effects that would have on services today. I bet those in Westminster would be watching Hi-Def films over fibre-optic cables now, not watching analogue tv and no access to broadband. Good job I live to the east of London
