Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrysalis
why?
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Because they have to. VM aren't some reseller of BT services who can add a 100Mbit/s pipe here and there when needed, they have an access network covering 48% of the UK population which needs constant maintenance along with an optical network that passes an even larger proportion of the population.
The fixed costs to VM just of existing are considerable, they need a large amount of customers to spread these fixed costs across.
Every 500 or less homes on the VM network has kilometres of coaxial trunks and drops, splitters, taps and bridges and a few active RF amplifiers feeding homes. This is connected to an laser which may need intermediate amplification on its way to hub site or headend via an EDFA. Each hub site needs power, security, maintenance, optical power balancing.
Each head end takes signals both from the VM national optical network and satellite feeds, so the various multiplexing and demultiplexing hardware is required, along with the downstream lasers, upstream optical receivers, patch panels, QAMs to transport the digital TV multiplexes, VoD servers and distribution, CMTSes, other access and transport routers.
The telco network requires its own resilient optical transport in order to maintain the Ofcom mandated reliability standards.
Most of these costs are fixed or increment minimally depending on the number of customers, the cable network needs as many customers as possible to divide these costs between, cable is extremely CapEx intensive.