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Originally Posted by rogermevans
the answer would be an ever increasing amount while cable seems to have stopped doing new areas and is trying to buy more customers rather then expanding
personaly i am on neither side just i dont see ntl as a saviour of broadband any more than bt is
both are not at the forfront of speed qualty or price in comparison to other countries and we realy should be ahead of the world on this
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The cablecos are not expanding their cabled areas simply because of the cost of doing so. The most densly populated parts of their areas are probably already cabled so there is a lower revenue potential in remaining uncabled areas. I would imagine it will be quite some time, if ever, before any significant new cabling projects are started. Maybe new builds may be cabled if done in conjunction with ground works for them. The only other possibility would be if cables were strung from poles rather than buried, but I think this unlikely.
Comparing broadband in this country with overseas is like comparing apples with oranges. There are so many factors which affect prices and speeds that vary depending on what part of the World you are in.
Competition is the driving force behind prices and speeds. Many ISP's will only do the minimum they can get away with to avoid spending vast amounts of money. Why would an ISP spend millions upgrading networks if they got little extra revenue from doing so? Whilst there are a vast number of ISPs in the UK, most of them are very small. Most of the well known names that are often talked about on here have a very small user base. Bulldog only having 65,000 customers for example. Are these really a threat to the cablecos? Can they take on many more customers in the near future and remain reliable, given that most of their new customers will be the heavy users that no ISP really wants?