2G : 2Gbps now officially available in HFC areas

[adduxi]

Shame really, as I noted before the "small" fibre add on cabs were installed around our area (ex-NTL co-ax) about 3 years ago. Looks like they will never be used. That leaves OR as the only FTTP supplier at this point in time.

[homesecurity]

Having worked alongside cable and telecoms distribution plant for decades, the NetCo restructuring and the Mustang timeline make complete sense once you look at the physical RF reality of the legacy coaxial network:

**1. The 2Gbps HFC Reality: Heavy Downstream Bandwidth, Asymmetric Upstream Trap**
Virgin can push 2Gbps downstream over DOCSIS 3.1 today by bonding two 192MHz OFDM blocks alongside 24 to 32 legacy SC-QAM downstream carriers. The Hub 5 Broadcom BCM3390 chipset handles that downstream throughput with ease.
However, the crippling bottleneck on legacy HFC remains the **upstream return path**:
- The vast majority of UK HFC nodes are still running the legacy **Sub-Split (5 to 65 MHz)**.
- That tiny 60MHz slice of spectrum only accommodates four 6.4MHz ATDMA channels (plus one 50MHz OFDMA upstream block where enabled), capping real-world aggregate upstream bandwidth across an entire node segment.
- Delivering true symmetric multi-gigabit speeds on HFC would require retrofitting **Mid-Split (85 MHz)** or **High-Split (204 MHz)** diplex filters across every street cabinet, line extender, and distribution amplifier in the cascade—which costs nearly as much in physical labour as blowing micro-fibre down the existing ducts.

**2. The NetCo / Nexfibre Shift**
Liberty Global's comments about not putting further FTTP CAPEX directly on the VM02 balance sheet are driven by the corporate spin-off of the network into **NetCo**:
- By ring-fencing the physical network into a wholesale NetCo (mirroring the Openreach / BT Retail split), they can merge or co-build directly with **Nexfibre** (backed by InfraVia's £4.5B external financing) without burdening VM02's retail balance sheet with debt.
- Project Mustang isn't dead—it's being shifted to NetCo wholesale financing where it can compete for third-party wholesale ISP traffic (Sky, Vodafone, TalkTalk) against Openreach.

**3. OPEX Always Kills HFC in the End**
Regardless of how long they sweat the DOCSIS 3.1 assets, the operational cost of active coaxial plant is staggering compared to passive optical:
- HFC requires powered street nodes, line amplifiers, and power supply units continuously drawing unmetered mains electricity 24/7/365, all vulnerable to summer/winter temperature RF tilt and seasonal balancing.
- XGS-PON is completely passive between the Headend OLT and the home ONT. Zero street electricity, zero RF amplifiers to replace after lightning strikes or power surges, and an immediate 10Gbps symmetrical path. HFC will be sweated where cash flow demands it, but every operator knows full fibre is the only viable endgame.