Where Now For UK Cable?

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by jtwn

OK. They have no cash. They only just bought out Virgin with how much cash?

-- kthnxgg --

They paid very little cash to merge with Virgin, it was mostly shares.

If a customer doesnt want to pay that price then cut them loose.

There's an issue of critical mass though, at some point some cash from a customer rather than none is the main thing.

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by Shaun

There's an issue of critical mass though, at some point some cash from a customer rather than none is the main thing.

If the cost of providing to an individual customer outstrips the revenue that is likely to come from that customer they should never be supplied.

[greencreeper]

My mum was talking about the Talk Talk free broadband offer - her area is non-cable. The big print says 8MB whereas the small print says that the speed will be the best they can offer It's a bit like those mystery boxes for a £5

[Chrysalis]

Whats critical mass supposed to mean?

I cant see how 1000 customers providing say £10k profit a year is better then 100 customers providing say £15k profit a year, end of the day they are supposed to make money and enough so they can reinvest to improve the service as well.

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by greencreeper

My mum was talking about the Talk Talk free broadband offer - her area is non-cable. The big print says 8MB whereas the small print says that the speed will be the best they can offer It's a bit like those mystery boxes for a £5

Umm right.

Presumably you have consistently missed the 'up to' in all the cable speed ads. Even the small print. Yeah you may get your full speed all the time, some don't. They've no recourse as speeds aren't guaranteed.

Actually you missed the 'up to' on the front page of the TalkTalk website as well. Really who cares either, it's virtually free and probably going to be faster than the 4Mbit or 1Mbit that most ntl customers have.

Anyway this rather dull and well used pop at DSL seen about 3 million times from cable fans when discussing DSL in general is not really on topic. Not sure if it was an attempt at humour or not but still never mind, on with the main topic

[Shaun]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Whats critical mass supposed to mean?

I cant see how 1000 customers providing say £10k profit a year is better then 100 customers providing say £15k profit a year, end of the day they are supposed to make money and enough so they can reinvest to improve the service as well.

If there are too few customers no matter how much cash they generate (within reason, after all customers will only pay so much) it won't be worth running all the equipment and staff.

Ntl must have a set figure of customers where it becomes completely useless to continue. At least if they keep the customers they can flog them additional services (Mobile, sport/movies, BB+).

If you're talking about just BB and phone once the stuff is installed there must be minimal continual spend on the customer. If Talktalk can still make money on these customers (even with a new connection), even if it does take 18 months, then Ntl must be able to (as they are already with them).

Saying that Ntl should (if they ever had any business sense) be locking people into 18 month contracts so they can actually make some money back.

The issue of bandwidth can't be that bad with Ntl or they wouldn't be making their connections unlimited.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by James Henry

Umm right.

Presumably you have consistently missed the 'up to' in all the cable speed ads. Even the small print. Yeah you may get your full speed all the time, some don't. They've no recourse as speeds aren't guaranteed.

Actually you missed the 'up to' on the front page of the TalkTalk website as well. Really who cares either, it's virtually free and probably going to be faster than the 4Mbit or 1Mbit that most ntl customers have.

Anyway this rather dull and well used pop at DSL seen about 3 million times from cable fans when discussing DSL in general is not really on topic. Not sure if it was an attempt at humour or not but still never mind, on with the main topic

However the technical superiority of the cable line over copper wire is that "up to" applies to most ADSL customers.

With lower contention ratios it is more likely cable customers have closer to the advertised rate.

And it still only applies to ADSL customers if you have a capable exchange.

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by jfman

However the technical superiority of the cable line over copper wire is that "up to" applies to most ADSL customers.

With lower contention ratios it is more likely cable customers have closer to the advertised rate.

And it still only applies to ADSL customers if you have a capable exchange.

Contention is nothing until it becomes visible.

DSL has a fundamental advantage in that the last mile is dedicated bandwidth between customer and DSLAM, and backhauls tend to be larger than the current 38 Mbps max cable offers each segment.

For example my own ISP has 1Gbps shared between its' customers on my exchange. Most of a

Not really appropriate to say that cable has a lower or higher contention ratio, the contention bottleneck on DSL is further away from the customer and easier to upgrade usually. The flipside obviously is that cable brings a higher max bandwidth to the consumer.

You've actually completely contradicted the 'commonly held wisdom' around cable and DSL. The usual argument is that while DSL offers a more stable speed cable offers a higher but less stable maximum.

The availability argument isn't really much of one. Because so little of the country is covered and enabled for broadband internet these unbundled services are as available as cable modem service, if not more so, and will certainly be more available within 6 months.

EDIT: I also think you've misunderstood what the 'up to' part means. It's actually more of a reference to the distance limits that ADSL has, IE unlike cable there is no active network so the speed achievable degrades the further one is from the operator's equipment. In cable's case if you are on 10Mbit then so long as all is working ok and the bandwidth is available you'll get 10Mbit, on DSL if you are within x KM of the exchange you'll get 10Mbit, a little further away 9, etc.

That's a cable advantage, but it's been undone somewhat by the ADSL2+ rollout and 'relatively' short lines in the UK meaning that most of the people in cable areas are usually able to get more than 10Mbit/s over ADSL2+ services.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by James Henry

EDIT: I also think you've misunderstood what the 'up to' part means. It's actually more of a reference to the distance limits that ADSL has, IE unlike cable there is no active network so the speed achievable degrades the further one is from the operator's equipment. In cable's case if you are on 10Mbit then so long as all is working ok and the bandwidth is available you'll get 10Mbit, on DSL if you are within x KM of the exchange you'll get 10Mbit, a little further away 9, etc.

That's a cable advantage, but it's been undone somewhat by the ADSL2+ rollout and 'relatively' short lines in the UK meaning that most of the people in cable areas are usually able to get more than 10Mbit/s over ADSL2+ services.

I understood that fine. At the end of the day ADSL cannot offer me, and probably many others in cabled areas uncapped services as fast as cable broadband. Even if they upgraded my exchange, at my distance I'd be lucky to get 6mb (something I expect from telewest in the near future). Then I'd be stuck in a 12 month contract and have a choice later of going back to cable or waiting for another exchange upgrade.

I look forward to the day ADSL can compete and it will bring down prices. However until they do compete and cable see a mass exodus of customers they will probably do nothing.

There is no point in cable competing their services with widespread availability against a future advance with limited availability at this stage.

When the ADSL ISPs make their promises a reality I'm sure cable will react.

LLU is great if you are in London, however elsewhere its availability is much lower.

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by jfman

I look forward to the day ADSL can compete and it will bring down prices. However until they do compete and cable see a mass exodus of customers they will probably do nothing.

There is no point in cable competing their services with widespread availability against a future advance with limited availability at this stage.

When the ADSL ISPs make their promises a reality I'm sure cable will react.

LLU is great if you are in London, however elsewhere its availability is much lower.

I guess you haven't seen the huge thread regarding the discounts ntl are dishing out in response to the TalkTalk deal. Cable is 'kinda' competing against that already and TalkTalk haven't started connecting huge amounts of people yet.

Check this out: http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2643

LLU is a lot more available than you think, and rollouts are still being done, virtually all of that rollout outside of London.

Yes due to line lengths DSL can't match cable on a number of lines, however for value and Mbps per £ the formula does change a bit.

BTW why aren't you correcting me on how cable offers lower contention and more consistent speeds, seeing as I directly disagreed?

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Shaun

If there are too few customers no matter how much cash they generate (within reason, after all customers will only pay so much) it won't be worth running all the equipment and staff.

Ntl must have a set figure of customers where it becomes completely useless to continue. At least if they keep the customers they can flog them additional services (Mobile, sport/movies, BB+).

If you're talking about just BB and phone once the stuff is installed there must be minimal continual spend on the customer. If Talktalk can still make money on these customers (even with a new connection), even if it does take 18 months, then Ntl must be able to (as they are already with them).

Saying that Ntl should (if they ever had any business sense) be locking people into 18 month contracts so they can actually make some money back.

The issue of bandwidth can't be that bad with Ntl or they wouldn't be making their connections unlimited.

Yes up to a point, in some cases what you say makes sense if you a small isp starting out you often need to loss lead get customers on the books then sell them more services.

If you already the largest provider in the country tho then I fail to see the need to offer discounts for life or rolling discounts that last for years to customers who have no intention of spending more money and will be a loss leader for life. In this case just tell the customer to pay full whack and leave. Their is no advantage in keeping the customer other then to gloat about customer count. Maybe ntl think they will be able to get all these customers signing up to virgin mobile services (since most probably are already triple play) who knows but profit is more important then head count especially in ntl's case. They paying the price now for limited coverage of the country and they as a result will have limited penetration.

---------- Post added at 16:04 ---------- Previous post was at 16:00 ----------

Originally Posted by James Henry

I guess you haven't seen the huge thread regarding the discounts ntl are dishing out in response to the TalkTalk deal. Cable is 'kinda' competing against that already and TalkTalk haven't started connecting huge amounts of people yet.

Check this out: http://www.adslguide.org.uk/newsarchive.asp?item=2643

LLU is a lot more available than you think, and rollouts are still being done, virtually all of that rollout outside of London.

Yes due to line lengths DSL can't match cable on a number of lines, however for value and Mbps per £ the formula does change a bit.

BTW why aren't you correcting me on how cable offers lower contention and more consistent speeds, seeing as I directly disagreed?

Every LLU line I have played on the speeds have been nothing short of amazing and no sign of contention anywhere, this is on both ukonline and bulldog, the 1gig limited bandwidth is certianly a lot more impressive then a shared 27mbit.

I agree if ntl could "really" compete they wouldnt need to offer cash incentives.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by James Henry

BTW why aren't you correcting me on how cable offers lower contention and more consistent speeds, seeing as I directly disagreed?

I'm sure there are more rollouts being done but until that is the case then it is purely theoretical for me anyway.

Until ADSL offers more than 2MB for me, and people in this reasonable sized town in central scotland, it is a no-brainer to go to the cable services.

I'm not particularly bothered about the ADSL v Cable debate, and more competition is certainly a good thing if it means cheaper internet but there is no competition in my area or many others outside London.

LLU will not necessarily mean 24MB for everyone any time soon.

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Maybe ntl think they will be able to get all these customers signing up to virgin mobile services (since most probably are already triple play)

They're delusional if that's the plan. Inspite of the endless bundling pimping 29% of original ntl customers take triple play, 37.4% of originally Telewest customers (as of end of 2005).

[jtwn]

Originally Posted by James Henry

Contention is nothing until it becomes visible.

DSL has a fundamental advantage in that the last mile is dedicated bandwidth between customer and DSLAM, and backhauls tend to be larger than the current 38 Mbps max cable offers each segment.

For example my own ISP has 1Gbps shared between its' customers on my exchange. Most of a

Not really appropriate to say that cable has a lower or higher contention ratio, the contention bottleneck on DSL is further away from the customer and easier to upgrade usually. The flipside obviously is that cable brings a higher max bandwidth to the consumer.

You've actually completely contradicted the 'commonly held wisdom' around cable and DSL. The usual argument is that while DSL offers a more stable speed cable offers a higher but less stable maximum.

The availability argument isn't really much of one. Because so little of the country is covered and enabled for broadband internet these unbundled services are as available as cable modem service, if not more so, and will certainly be more available within 6 months.

EDIT: I also think you've misunderstood what the 'up to' part means. It's actually more of a reference to the distance limits that ADSL has, IE unlike cable there is no active network so the speed achievable degrades the further one is from the operator's equipment. In cable's case if you are on 10Mbit then so long as all is working ok and the bandwidth is available you'll get 10Mbit, on DSL if you are within x KM of the exchange you'll get 10Mbit, a little further away 9, etc.

That's a cable advantage, but it's been undone somewhat by the ADSL2+ rollout and 'relatively' short lines in the UK meaning that most of the people in cable areas are usually able to get more than 10Mbit/s over ADSL2+ services.

First of all I don't wish to discredit your knowledge on these things as you obviously know more about some of the more intricate things then I do

Lets look at it like this. DSL has two factors involed in you getting the speed. Line length and contention of pipe from DSLAM to ISP.

Cable has the single factor of contention from customer to CMTS. I would like to think core is a situation that doesn't require as much thought as the access networks, after all 'Plusnet issues' don't appear to be apparent on ntl.

So yes, a telephone loop is not shared like cable and cable does not have the same contention point. However channel bonding can negate the smaller share, even though its a wonder now to those who cannot monitor a uBR of its usage, how a DOCSIS 1.1 64QAM system can hold the the allocate users on a card and still can see 10mbit, so I cannot see why the same cannot be said when the speeds are higher offered on a system which has greater aggregate bandwidth with somewhat the same ratio. Not to mention the evil traffic shaping gear they have too

BT's 21 CN network of bringing fibre closer to the home, well ntl is already there with fibre to the node. So if we are going to compare upgrades, BT are moving fibre up to negate the effects of line length and try and offer better speeds come ADSL2+, VDSL2 or whatever else there is by then, as opposed to ntl who are making use of the existing bandwidth that is already there. In fact, even before channel bonding, I know ntl are using a second downstream in one area that isn't Guildford.

It cannot be denied that the gigabits of bandwidth available on coax networks is there, its just not being used, whether that be due to finance, technology, needed technology upgrades or dumbass management. I'm guessing possibly all four with ntl

[IanUK]

NTL could give every household their own private 1000mbit line for all I care, as soon as you left the NTL network the crap peering would make it useless.

Where now for UK Cable ?
Nowhere unless their links to other networks are massively expanded, 10 meg unlimited will probably make a bad situation into a catastrophe

The DSL connections I have used on this area stay at the same rate to all destinations at all times of the day, NTL's is awful at night, great during the day.