[Escapee]

Originally Posted by alestescarrow

So assuming Cabletel bought Metro TV's South Wales & Hertfordshire assets, the remaining Rediffusion infrastucture in South Wales is now actually owned by Virgin Media. Of course it's all pretty useless over 50 years from when it was installed, but as you say the ducts and the heavy infrastructure channels could have been so easily re-used.

And even now VM is considering a return to over-head cable following the opening up of BT poles and ducts... what goes around comes around I guess. Perhaps there will be more pressure on VM as BT Infinity's coverage increases; it will be in Wrexham by the end of the year.

But... if (extremely hypothetically!) VM were to want to expand its network into North Wales, would Metro be legally obliged to object as (if it still does) it is the legal licence holder?

I believe the legal position on old Rediffusion networks are probably still unsolved. When Maxwell Cable TV went into administration after Robert Maxwell jumped, the assets were subject to a management buyout that resulted in Metro Cable TV Ltd. The line I kept hearing was that the management buyout included only the operating assets and not the liabilities of Maxwell Cable TV. (Old closed down Rediffusion networks)

I don't believe it was ever quite so straight forward though, Metro continued to remove cables and poles from old closed down network areas as and when residents complained or local authorities requested. It lead me to believe that either the official line that Metro was not liable was just a way of not officially accepting their liabilities, or the true amount of assets/liabilities were not known by the administrators. I did also observe that on the occasions when these liabilities turned into assets, they were all too keen to claim them.

So the question now is does Virgin now considers itself responsible for the old networks (Liabilities) that Metro Cable TV claimed they didn't buy as part of the management buyout and were not responsible for. My guess is they will be claiming they own them if they are assets.

As far as I understand Metro have no way of stopping an operator such as Virgin building in the North Wales area. I am out of touch with things these days but there are no franchise areas and I believe the LDO Local Delivery Operators licence has also disappeared.

I know that when ntl (Virgin) were playing around with overhead networks in Ireland they were struggling to find employees with the necessary skills and experience. I remember that there was talk of some of the old ex-Rediffusion Cable TV employees from South Wales going across to train them.