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Originally Posted by jfman
These companies are having to shell out just to match cable at the minute.
Cable are currently the market leader in broadband services. I can't see them giving it up too quickly.
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There we have to disagree.
I'd describe neither cableco as market leader as their premium packages are both slower and more expensive than their ADSL equivalents.
Bulldog's 16Mbit uncapped deal is as available as cable broaband and cheaper.
UKOnline's coverage isn't as high but again faster and cheaper.
Telewest's upstream on their 10Mbit deal is pathetic and needs increasing.
---------- Post added at 21:14 ---------- Previous post was at 21:11 ----------
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Originally Posted by jtwn
OK. They have no cash. They only just bought out Virgin with how much cash?
-- kthnxgg --
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Actually a more appropriate point would have been that ntl had just bought out Telewest with how much cash...
Therein lies the problem. They paid 4 billion USD in cash, over a billion in shares and took on a fair whack of assumed debt.
The combined company is now worth 7 billion USD.
Most of the above wasn't cash from the bank, it was debt. Again rather than invest in infrastructure, etc, ntl ****ed away their cash on acquisition.
They need to get the cost reductions going as ntl still aren't a profitable business and they need to get profitable and get investing fairly rapidly.
Of more concern is that some of the things that made Telewest more profitable are being chopped in the name of attracting customers. One particular thing of note being that while Telewest do actually credit check customers and will refuse to install to those who present a risk ntl will quite happily install to anyone regardless. Telewest employees are getting the same targets as ntl ones now, even though they have different criteria. ntl have been known to let people off of arrears on their bills to retain them as customers. Again the figures are everything, apart from the profit column.
---------- Post added at 21:19 ---------- Previous post was at 21:14 ----------
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Originally Posted by jtwn
Whereas expansion of the opposition is threugh ADSL2+, ntl are 'set' to use DOCSIS 3.0 next year. The connections that could be offered vs ADSL/2+ will batter them into oblivion.
When people have the opportunity of 24mbit vs 100mbit, that is going to sway some. This is the inherrrent advantage that cable has above LLU, that it is one step ahead with its speeds. I'm not saying that its the breadwinner all round and everybody is going to convert to cable, I'm just saying the broadband product, hopefully, will be better.
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Indeed. For now. BT's 'autumn trial' this year is probably going to be VDSL. Then you have the FTTH trials. As I stated above BT will as part of 21CN be trialling deeper fibre into their network.
Worth remembering that while rollouts are 'on the road map' we don't know how the trials are going yet.