How big are VM's infills?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by nodrogd

Info on the East London network expansion has just been posted on the VM community forum, along with a postcode checker:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...-p/2431339#M36

Hope they will give us the figures for the spike in fraud along with churn. A lot of what they're upgrading is a total excrement hole of an area.

I should've invested in shares in a card sharing box producer.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Hope they will give us the figures for the spike in fraud along with churn. A lot of what they're upgrading is a total excrement hole of an area.

I should've invested in shares in a card sharing box producer.

As I understand it VM are scrapping cards for box's, just what I heard in the office.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Pierre

As I understand it VM are scrapping cards for box's, just what I heard in the office.

Incorporating everything onto the CAM?

Devil's in the detail on that one. Having what should be an always on return path helps a ton in access control.

[Ignitionnet]

Got a quote for some of this area from the new bulid team after a while.

Was higher than either BT or a smaller operator gave for FTTP/B.

Bit of a farce really. No wonder VM have been so reluctant to do any digging themselves if they are managing to make network build cost that much per home passed.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Hope they will give us the figures for the spike in fraud along with churn. A lot of what they're upgrading is a total excrement hole of an area.

I should've invested in shares in a card sharing box producer.

Which demographic watches most TV?

[1andrew1]

Originally Posted by Top banana

Which demographic watches most TV?

After your late teens, the older you are, the more TV you watch. http://thefuturebuzz.com/2011/02/03/tv-viewing-trend/
I don't know about other demographics.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Top banana

Which demographic watches most TV?

Why would VM care? Their priority would be who would pay the most for a basket of services, not who sits there glued for longest.

Building in some of the most deprived areas of the UK probably means many who are unlikely to purchase the 'Big Daddy' package but hey they can re-use some infrastructure so it was cheaper to do.

I believe you're a shareholder. Either VM's build costs are absurd or they're extremely reluctant to spend money passing new areas, neither of which bode well longer term.

It shouldn't be costing them more to pass homes than a far smaller FTTP operator but that's precisely what the costings they provided me suggested. That or said smaller FTTP operator is happy to contribute more themselves to the cost of the build.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Why would VM care? Their priority would be who would pay the most for a basket of services, not who sits there glued for longest.

Building in some of the most deprived areas of the UK probably means many who are unlikely to purchase the 'Big Daddy' package but hey they can re-use some infrastructure so it was cheaper to do.

I believe you're a shareholder. Either VM's build costs are absurd or they're extremely reluctant to spend money passing new areas, neither of which bode well longer term.

It shouldn't be costing them more to pass homes than a far smaller FTTP operator but that's precisely what the costings they provided me suggested. That or said smaller FTTP operator is happy to contribute more themselves to the cost of the build.

People like Sirius know more about all this but I think they have a cost model they work to. The nearer the houses are together the cheaper the build.

[MrIca]

Originally Posted by Top banana

People like Sirius know more about all this but I think they have a cost model they work to. The nearer the houses are together the cheaper the build.

I still can't believe they are missing out on huge new build estates, it's frnkly bizarre. There's a new housing estate with hundreds of homes, the road it leads off from is cabled. However Virgin are nowhere to be seen on the new estate, two different building companies too, not just the one.

The challenge is them knowing about it - it's obviously much cheaper to put the infrastructure in when the site in in the building phase, not so much afterwards.

In the 90's, under the RaSWA91, the builders and other utilities were supposed to inform interested parties to enable concurrent build, rather than post-build - not sure if this still happens.

On the economics of a build (I don't know what the current cost per 100 metres is), if you had 300 homes, and you get a 35% uptake (which is quite good), and at a estimate (Big Kahuna costs) of £60 per month, times 12 months, times 105 customers, that is just over £75k per year from those customers.

If VM's margin (don't know, so only estimating) is 10 or 20 percent, that is only £7.5 to £15k per year.....

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Hugh

In the 90's, under the RaSWA91, the builders and other utilities were supposed to inform interested parties to enable concurrent build, rather than post-build - not sure if this still happens.....

That's for the co-ordination of streetworks, which is different to housing developments.

The NRSWA side of things would not come into play until the developer had to dig into the existing adjacent road to connect up water,gas, etc.

The developer has to provide BT connections, which is fine for BT and their resellers.

To get the developer to install another duct for A.N.Other operator, then begs the question of who owns the duct?

If VM have not provided the duct or dug it themselves ( and to do either they must know about the development and have agreement from the developer to do it) then Who owns the duct?

Who maintains the duct and chambers? Who is liable if the chambers and duct cause injury to someone.

It's not straightforward.

VM aren't the only other provider out there that would be thankful for a duct to use. City fibre, hyper optic and alike would all be equally entitled to use a 'free to anyone' duct installed by a developer.

So unless VM dig it or it is installed under agreement for VMS use only, then it is unlikely they would use it.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Top banana

People like Sirius know more about all this but I think they have a cost model they work to. The nearer the houses are together the cheaper the build.

That model is unrealistic. If they insist on building HFC they have to accept that £300 per home passed isn't enough to expand coverage significantly.

100,000 homes in East London sounds a lot, it's less than 1% of the current homes passed.

Wonder if they paid £300 per home passed, total £12 million, for Smallworld?

Given Liberty paid E10 billion for the 4.25 million homes passed by Ziggo this seems unlikely.

Bizarre the budget to build networks is so much lower than the one to buy them.

---------- Post added at 18:42 ---------- Previous post was at 18:19 ----------

Originally Posted by Top banana

Which demographic watches most TV?

Never actually answered this most completely.

VM also refused to extend their network to the Middleton and Hunslet areas of Leeds, despite having core network here.

The demographics in some areas of here are similar to the demographic you are alluding to.

East London is I'm sure partly economic, but probably a little political too.

No matter; at some point with the ongoing trials in Papworth VM may start using construction techniques from this millennium and hence open up new coverage areas even with their derisory spend limit.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Bizarre the budget to build networks is so much lower than the one to buy them..

At a guess, there's a significant cost in marketing new build to customers, and actually connecting rather than passing them, which would account for some of the price premium paid for an existing network full of customers.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Chris

At a guess, there's a significant cost in marketing new build to customers, and actually connecting rather than passing them, which would account for some of the price premium paid for an existing network full of customers.

Perhaps £1 per home for a flier? VM already have the Royal Mail database.

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Perhaps £1 per home for a flier? VM already have the Royal Mail database.

Plus how much, for the last 10 metres of cable from the duct to the sub's house and around the skirting boards? And local radio and newspaper campaigns?

I don't know the details of the figures, but it seems to me that a built network complete with connected customers is bound to represent a substantially greater investment on the part of the network builder than the basic cost of passing x-thousand homes with new build, and a substantially more secure return on the investment if there are a good number of connected customers and a reasonable churn figure.