Quote:
Originally Posted by arefem
If memory serves, BT originally owned the MK Cable and had to dispose of it because the Government said they could not be both a content provider and content carrier.
BT wanted such a stupid price for it, nobody would buy. This was a tactic to get the legislation changed, but didn't work. Eventually NTL agreed to lease the network, on the understanding BT would upgrade it. As we know VM took over NTL some time back. The agreement, to my understanding, was that BT would maintain the fibre, and NTL (VM) the copper. There's always a dispute over who maintains the box where the two meet!
Before the disposal of the network, BT had given assurances that i would be upgraded, and presumably those assurances were taken into account by NTL at the time.
Seems like those assurances were not written into the agreement, so BT are renaging.
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Were you there at the agreement discussions then? Didn't think so
Are you seriously suggesting that a major lease agreement would have been signed, but a pivotal point of the agreement would have been done on a handshake?
Quote:
Originally Posted by arefem
You're right, BT do still own the cable, and that's the problem. BT do not see it as a priority and will get no financial benefit, VM will not upgrade it because it is not thiers, so what was once the jewel in the crown of British communication technology is now consigned to a technological backwater.
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Of course BT are not going to upgrade it, since as we've established, it wasn't in the original contract to and as you correctly point out there's no financial benefit to BT to do so.
If you and the other residents of MK were of any importance to Virgin, then surely either VM would be making great efforts to buy the network from BT or stumping up the cash to have it upgraded right?
But the reality is that they've long missed the boat; as you said, Sky's prevalence in MK is so big now (especially as the MK demographic is perfect multichannel home territory) that it would be not only cost VM the price of upgrading the network, but the marketing costs to try to break into the opposition's dominance.
And whilst we're talking about CRMK, the delivery mechanism for this channel so ridiculously flawerd (and has been since it launched) that I am genuinely surprised it's still on-air! It's it still housed up at Crownhill?