Where Now For UK Cable?

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Actually, that's not true. Not all content on VOD is charged, and Sky's broadband is only free if you take movies or sports channels.

Sky have several advantages over UK Cable, which allow them to innovate more easily.

1. They have the backing of one of (if not the) largest multimedia corporation on the planet. News Corp.
2. They have less hardware/software to upgrade. Even ignoring the STBs, to launch a new service, Sky may have to upgrade a few uplink sites (if any) and their broadcast facilities. UK Cable may have hundreds of sites to update (all the head ends need upgrading for VOD for example). It's also worth noting that if the service requires extra hardware on the STB (such as a hard drive), the Cable Co's have hundreds of STBs to replace. Sky tend to require that the user buy their own. Admittedly, UK Cable could also require this, and save themselves a whole lot of money, but they don't seem willing.
3. Satellite is (by definition) a relatively cheap way to reach millions of viewers (all you need is some comms hardware and a transponder or two on a satellite). Cable has a few downlink sites, hundreds of head ends, thousands of street cabinets and tens of thousands of miles of cable.
   
   
   

Stuart also ntl are having to support different types of networks/services because they wont integrate their services into 1 universal service, which is ultimately raising their costs and reducing quality of service.

---------- Post added at 18:26 ---------- Previous post was at 18:24 ----------

Originally Posted by Stuart C

True, NTL's interactive services do lead an awful lot to be desired. However, I don't think that is *entirely* NTL's fault. I think the broadcasters have a lot to answer for there.

are ntl to blame if the customer has analogue only service tho? would be interested to know if interactive is possible on analogue.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Stuart also ntl are having to support different types of networks/services because they wont integrate their services into 1 universal service, which is ultimately raising their costs and reducing quality of service.

True, although NTL are stuck between a rock and a hard place there. It costs a lot to operate all those different services, but would also cost an awful lot to upgrade

are ntl to blame if the customer has analogue only service tho? would be interested to know if interactive is possible on analogue.

Well, I did say *entirely*. I do think NTL could do a lot more to improve the customer side of interactive.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

True, although NTL are stuck between a rock and a hard place there. It costs a lot to operate all those different services, but would also cost an awful lot to upgrade



Well, I did say *entirely*. I do think NTL could do a lot more to improve the customer side of interactive.

Yep its a short term gain and long term loss.

Lets take a 5 year period of increased support/maintenance costs, increased retention costs (keeping customers on inferior services), loss of customers due to inferior services so loss of profit, increased training costs for staff having to train on more types of network/services, increased advertising costs having to print out more prices etc. for different services. Put this VS a one off large cost of upgrading and merging areas so is one playing field across their footprint.

NTL can then start doing things like this.

10meg broadband/family digital tv pack with VOD/tu24 available in ALL OUR AREAS, not distance dependant all for only 49.99 a month.

Sky would find it hard to match that since you getting a phone/vod/10 meg broadband which performs well due to downstream channel bonding made possible by not having to support analogue channels, whilst bt/sky have to contend with poor long phone lines etc. VOD which sky dont have i think and the ability to change your broadband package online instantly. Ntl need to play to their strengths they potentially could lead the market in many aspects of service but just dont know how to play the game.

Add to that people will then start to want ntl for their normal prices (not discounted) and ntl might actually make profit again, redesign the product portfolio so you can things seperatly but they cost a lot more, for examply sky allow the subscription of sky sports extra on its own but it costs a nice £6 a month whilst as an incentive to get their premium packages they throw it in free with sky sports 1+2.

[Dave2150]

Originally Posted by jtwn

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.

Nonsense - BT's 21CN is NOT about rolling out FTTK/FTTH at all. All the 21CN does is upgrade the network in the exchanges to an IP network, to save they cash in the long term.

BT have already said they are NOT going to delpoy fibre in the short to medium term.

We will not be seeing Fibre for many many years from BT.

[jtwn]

Yeah, I misremebered, obviously.

I believe ntl are doing something along the same lines, migrating from TDM to IP?

[Womble]

Originally Posted by Dave2150

Nonsense - BT's 21CN is NOT about rolling out FTTK/FTTH at all. All the 21CN does is upgrade the network in the exchanges to an IP network, to save they cash in the long term.

BT have already said they are NOT going to delpoy fibre in the short to medium term.

We will not be seeing Fibre for many many years from BT.

BT are migrating Business Customers over to Ethernet via Fibre (As NTL are). The next step is to migrate their rezzy subs, it will take a long time, but its happening !
BT's is called 21CN, ours is called Met Net, both ot them are connected

[Chrysalis]

Last I heard BT are refusing to do fibre rollouts without assurances they will have to open up the network which leaves it a kind of stalemate situation.

Originally Posted by Chrysalis

Last I heard BT are refusing to do fibre rollouts without assurances they will have to open up the network which leaves it a kind of stalemate situation.

BT needs splitting in two. Only a proper division of the wholesale and retail businesses can solve the ridiculous, schizophrenic approach the company takes to decisions like this. What we need is a BT wholesale business that is free to sell its services on equal terms and to make investment decisions for its own business benefit, and not with one eye on giving the Retail division an advantage.

[Escapee]

Originally Posted by Chris T

BT needs splitting in two. Only a proper division of the wholesale and retail businesses can solve the ridiculous, schizophrenic approach the company takes to decisions like this. What we need is a BT wholesale business that is free to sell its services on equal terms and to make investment decisions for its own business benefit, and not with one eye on giving the Retail division an advantage.

I understood BT were trying to get out of opening their "new" parts of the network, as they claimed it was nothing to do with the original assets of the public sector.

I did and still do, think its very unfair to be forced into allowing other providers use your network. This puts BT at a disadvantage, BT may be a large company like many that people hate, but there is nothing fair about a government forcing this issue.

If you buy a company, the government should not come along later and expect you to give things away to other companies that you have paid for after the purchase.

Originally Posted by Escapee

I understood BT were trying to get out of opening their "new" parts of the network, as they claimed it was nothing to do with the original assets of the public sector.

I did and still do, think its very unfair to be forced into allowing other providers use your network. This puts BT at a disadvantage, BT may be a large company like many that people hate, but there is nothing fair about a government forcing this issue.

If you buy a company, the government should not come along later and expect you to give things away to other companies that you have paid for after the purchase.

It's a clever argument, but the new bits of their network would be worthless if they couldn't tie them into the old bits that were privatised. And they wouldn't have the money to invest in the new bits if they didn't have a massive guaranteed market thanks to their former utility status. As I said, the solution to this is to do what British Gas realised it needed to do years ago, and split the infrastructure from the retail business. That way BT Wholesale can sell what they want to whom they want without any bother.

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by Chris T

It's a clever argument, but the new bits of their network would be worthless if they couldn't tie them into the old bits that were privatised. And they wouldn't have the money to invest in the new bits if they didn't have a massive guaranteed market thanks to their former utility status. As I said, the solution to this is to do what British Gas realised it needed to do years ago, and split the infrastructure from the retail business. That way BT Wholesale can sell what they want to whom they want without any bother.

Any new FTTH deployment would be connected to networks which didn't exist when privatisation happened. The IP networks weren't around at that time.

Actually the DSL network apart from that last mile copper wasn't around when BT was privatised either.

From BT's point of view why should they invest billions then be told how much they can and can't charge for use of the networks. If they were to be told that the FTTH network would be regulated then there's no reason why ntl's network shouldn't be opened up as well.

Also I don't fancy paying the extra taxes in compensating BT's shareholders for unilaterally shafting their investment to be honest. We pay enough for nothing without doing things like that.

[Chrysalis]

Originally Posted by Chris T

BT needs splitting in two. Only a proper division of the wholesale and retail businesses can solve the ridiculous, schizophrenic approach the company takes to decisions like this. What we need is a BT wholesale business that is free to sell its services on equal terms and to make investment decisions for its own business benefit, and not with one eye on giving the Retail division an advantage.

Maybe, but what rollout and investing have ntl done over the last few years?

Significantly less then BT.

The future of BT still looks a lot brighter then for uk cable, its making healthy profits, has huge coverage and can upgrade its technology when it wants.

Can the same be said for uk cable?

[Rillington]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

Actually, that's not true. Not all content on VOD is charged, and Sky's broadband is only free if you take movies or sports channels.

Sky have several advantages over UK Cable, which allow them to innovate more easily.

1. They have the backing of one of (if not the) largest multimedia corporation on the planet. News Corp.
2. They have less hardware/software to upgrade. Even ignoring the STBs, to launch a new service, Sky may have to upgrade a few uplink sites (if any) and their broadcast facilities. UK Cable may have hundreds of sites to update (all the head ends need upgrading for VOD for example). It's also worth noting that if the service requires extra hardware on the STB (such as a hard drive), the Cable Co's have hundreds of STBs to replace. Sky tend to require that the user buy their own. Admittedly, UK Cable could also require this, and save themselves a whole lot of money, but they don't seem willing.
3. Satellite is (by definition) a relatively cheap way to reach millions of viewers (all you need is some comms hardware and a transponder or two on a satellite). Cable has a few downlink sites, hundreds of head ends, thousands of street cabinets and tens of thousands of miles of cable.

I accept those three points. However, what people see is the prodct and not the stuff you describe. What I see is that I would pay £50 per month for the Sky Sports digital package if I allowed ntl to charge me that much whereas for the same package on Sky I would pay less than £40, get Sky+ for free, have access to Sky Sports VOD via my broadband connection, have all the Sky Sports interactive stuff and be able to watch more than double the numebr of channels whilst paying 25% less than ntl charge me and given that ntl is boudn to charge for its PVR then I'd be paying £60 per month compared to £35 pm on Sky and still not get all those extra channels and the sports VOD stuff despite paying almost double.

As for the VOD, I accept that the catch-up is not a chargeable add-on but I believe that the programmes offered are very small in number and change meaning that often you would not be able to watch a series on VOD because the final episodes would not be available.

[Locky]

it be nice if they got a government grant or sumthing as it has to be good ofr the economy instead of spending £14k on shery blairs hair cut. why not invest ?

[James Henry]

Originally Posted by Locky

it be nice if they got a government grant or sumthing as it has to be good ofr the economy instead of spending £14k on shery blairs hair cut. why not invest ?

Sorry I don't see why my tax money should go towards propping up a private company. If they can't organise their business properly and competitively they should be out of business.

Don't really see how ntl getting public money would benefit the economy either, apart from perhaps the Indian one from the outsourced staff and the US one from the shareholders' capital gains.

BTW The money for Cherie Blair's hair styling came from Labour party coffers, not the public purse.