Virgin CEO interview

There is an interesting interview with Tom Mockridge here

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/n...ention-BT.html

[1andrew1]

I foud this part interesting. Does it refers to potentially using BT's ducts and telegraph poles?

Similarly, Mockridge acknowledges that the limited coverage of the Virgin Media network will be a challenge at some point in the future.
“The ambition of the company is to find ways to cost-effectively serve more customers,” he says.“Digging up roads is not only expensive but it’s also something most people don’t particularly like you doing so we’ve got to find ways of getting to customers beyond that...”

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I foud this part interesting. Does it refers to potentially using BT's ducts and telegraph poles?

That has been rumoured for a while now.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Sirius

That has been rumoured for a while now.

Yes of course, back in 2010 it conducted trials. What's interesting is 1) Who's saying it ie the new Chief Executive 2) When he's saying it ie four years later so it's not ruled out.

[webcrawler2050]

Will be interesting to see how Virgin can push forward.

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Yes of course, back in 2010 it conducted trials. What's interesting is 1) Who's saying it ie the new Chief Executive 2) When he's saying it ie four years later so it's not ruled out.

Originally Posted by webcrawler2050

Will be interesting to see how Virgin can push forward.

We now have a dedicated new build team in the planning office i work in, and they are getting pretty busy.

[webcrawler2050]

I bet - I'm really excited to see what Virgin can bring in coming months. Theres a tonn of maintenace work going on in the street I live in. 6 VM vans been here for 2 weeks.

[Pierre]

Not just BT, we've conducted trials using SSE pylons too.

We've ruled out using the BT fibre TTC, as per everyone else. That project got shelved last year.

There are other ways of extending our reach, we did something on
North Lincolnshire recently.

[DJSADERS]

What is a shame is the amount of empty ducts and pits lying around, for example just off the Guildford network...

Godalming and Farncombe are covered in pits and ducts, with some going to the front doors of the later builds however neither town is served.

Again Send (near ripley) ducts and pits and not served.

Yet all three areas are no more than 1 mile away from the nearest part of the network... so im not sold on all the costs of expanding the network as alot of the leg work has been done previously... in this example CableTel... just never used...

---------- Post added at 15:20 ---------- Previous post was at 15:18 ----------

This is also true of towns such as Sandhurst and Bagshot all within 1 - 2 miles of the nearest network, with ghost cabs yet not served....

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by DJSADERS

What is a shame is the amount of empty ducts and pits lying around, for example just off the Guildford network...

I wonder if someone from VM can enlighten us on why this might be so and if this type of situation will be reconsidered?

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

I wonder if someone from VM can enlighten us on why this might be so and if this type of situation will be reconsidered?

Lots of reason why the final connection was never made from wayleave issues, Bridges that we cannot get permission to cross, private roads, the list just goes on and on.

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Sirius

Lots of reason why the final connection was never made from wayleave issues, Bridges that we cannot get permission to cross, private roads, the list just goes on and on.

Thanks. Do such situations get revisited?

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by 1andrew1

Thanks. Do such situations get revisited?

I think the newbuild team are looking at some.

[nn012]

“You only get revenue by getting customers and keeping customers. We’re not making a choice to wind back on profit to just grab share and nor are we just going to cut our way to profitability.”

Who else thought this was a dig at Sky? He does have a point though because the only way Sky now get new customers is by offering heavy discounts on their products. They have yet again another 50% offer available for new customers and then there's the cheap NowTV offering.

[1andrew1]

I didn't see it as a dig at anyone, I saw it as saying that Virgin is not going to get involved in price wars and it is not going to be cutting costs heavily.