Virgin Media announces largest UK fibre broadband rollout

[spiderplant]

Originally Posted by MrIca

Well all the vans I'm seeing a Virgin Media direct labour, not contractors.

VM staff need to visit stores/toilets/coffee machines too

[MrIca]

Originally Posted by Pierre

How do you know, in many instances they use the exact same vans.

Oh right, I always thought the subcontractors use vans with the logo of their company, Kelly Communications for instance with a Virgin Media logo also. These vans just have Virgin Media on them with van related puns on the front. Why would VM allow subcontractors to use VM owned vans anyway?

[vm_tech]

Originally Posted by MrIca

Thanks, good solid facts as ever. Raises a question though, why do they have so many hubsites now then if they can serve 160km? In my area for instance they've got one in Bromborough which seems to serve about 10 miles on every direction and then also some kind of smaller switching site in Birkenhead a few miles down the road.

I'm assuming they've also got a few in Liverpool and Warrington.

Because the telco transmission cards of the time couldn't transmit that distance. And I doubt the catv stuff could at the time

[Skie]

Originally Posted by MrIca

I still don't understand what the engineers do in the hubsites though. I see dozens going in and out of the Bromborough one.

Thats where a sacrifice to the old gods of coax is done each morning. I'lla DOCSIS, R'lyeh fhtagn.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by MrIca

Oh right, I always thought the subcontractors use vans with the logo of their company, Kelly Communications for instance with a Virgin Media logo also. These vans just have Virgin Media on them with van related puns on the front. Why would VM allow subcontractors to use VM owned vans anyway?

VM don't own the vans, the vans are leased as are the contractors. They are all logo' up the same as the vans are dedicated working on the VM contract.

If you're having VM installed then VM want you to see a VM van, not a Kelly's van.

I'm not saying the vans you see are contractors vans, they may or may not be.

[MrIca]

Originally Posted by Pierre

VM don't own the vans, the vans are leased as are the contractors. They are all logo' up the same as the vans are dedicated working on the VM contract.

If you're having VM installed then VM want you to see a VM van, not a Kelly's van.

I'm not saying the vans you see are contractors vans, they may or may not be.

Yeah I'm just used to the Openreach way of doing things. Contractors clearly don't work for Openreach and the van has the prominent name of the company they work for with a smaller "working on behalf of Openreach" logo on it. Their uniform would say "Kelly Communications" or "MJ Quinn". I don't think they want you to mistake them for actual Openreach staff.

I definitely see loads of Kelly Communications vans around here though, with a smaller "working on behalf of Virgin Media" logo on as well

[Paradroid]

Well I'm very happy, it looks like VM are running cables down my road this week. Hopefully be back with VM as soon as it's ready.

I miss my tivo box lol

[Horizon]

Just a little titbit of info from the webcast today, VM are currently building out to 300k homes at a cost of £500 per home passed. This time last year the number was at 30k homes.

A question asked to Mike Fries was, could VM accelerate and even expand the build out to more new homes. The answer was that Liberty was pleased with the numbers and take up of services and they could expand and accelerate if they wanted, or slow down if costs were too high.

So, there is a possiblity that the build-out may increased to more homes once this current project is done.

[vm_tech]

Originally Posted by Horizon

Just a little titbit of info from the webcast today, VM are currently building out to 300k homes at a cost of £500 per home passed. This time last year the number was at 30k homes.

A question asked to Mike Fries was, could VM accelerate and even expand the build out to more new homes. The answer was that Liberty was pleased with the numbers and take up of services and they could expand and accelerate if they wanted, or slow down if costs were too high.

So, there is a possiblity that the build-out may increased to more homes once this current project is done.

This is what I've always thought: project lightening is a 5 year, 3 billion pound project. If this returns them 4 billion, why would they stop at 5 years? Obviously it's a waiting game they won't see the money back instantly, but if they forecast it will bring more money in they will carry on. They will stop once the forecasts say there's now too much risk of not earning money from this, so we will stop

[Pierre]

They struggled to hit the 2015 numbers, there were homes released that weren't yet activated just to hit the numbers.

This size of build has not been attempted for twenty years and there just isn't the workforce available to install the infrastructure.

It's also been a long time since VM have built like this and there are few school boy errors been made, but they are getting through despite this.

By all accounts Lightening is a bit of a pressure cooker at the moment.

[Kushan]

Still, a cost of £500 per home is actually pretty impressive (I think). I would even go so far as to say that quite a lot of people would be willing to spend £500 of their own money if it got them Cable.

Hopefully the takeup will be there to make the investment worthwhile.

[MrIca]

http://imgur.com/4y1WqQn

Two new cabinets and some kind of yellow plinth right outside a large new estate being built. Jointboxes next to the cabinets have got CATV on them. The yellow thing is puzzling me though, it looks like it might be to do with a mobile mast, though there's no planning application for that so it seems unlikely.

Any idea what it is?

[Ignitionnet]

The cabinet on the right as you look at it is a power cabinet. On the left you've a 'standard' CATV and nodal cabinet that'll deliver services to a bunch of people's homes alongside terminating fibre. In the middle looks like a plinth for an MSAN that provides telco services. Those are delivered with the MSAN in the cabinet already so presumably the ducts and plinth are covered up waiting for the MSAN itself.

Closer to delivery time I imagine that cover will be replaced by the MSAN.

---------- Post added at 19:55 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------

Originally Posted by vm_tech

This is what I've always thought: project lightening is a 5 year, 3 billion pound project. If this returns them 4 billion, why would they stop at 5 years? Obviously it's a waiting game they won't see the money back instantly, but if they forecast it will bring more money in they will carry on. They will stop once the forecasts say there's now too much risk of not earning money from this, so we will stop

The 4 million premises, £3 billion Lightning is the first phase of the project. If it goes as planned VM can and will continue to build.

---------- Post added at 19:57 ---------- Previous post was at 19:55 ----------

Originally Posted by Horizon

Just a little titbit of info from the webcast today, VM are currently building out to 300k homes at a cost of £500 per home passed. This time last year the number was at 30k homes.

VM are willing to suck up considerably more than £500 per premises passed during the course of this project. They will be building to completely new towns and are budgeting £750 per premises passed across the lifetime of the project.

The back end of the project here will be coming in at close to £1k per premises passed, offset by the costs of the earlier phases of the build and justified by take up and expected ARPU in those streets.

Pierre can probably pull up the details on that particular drama.

[MrIca]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

The cabinet on the right as you look at it is a power cabinet. On the left you've a 'standard' CATV and nodal cabinet that'll deliver services to a bunch of people's homes alongside terminating fibre. In the middle looks like a plinth for an MSAN that provides telco services. Those are delivered with the MSAN in the cabinet already so presumably the ducts and plinth are covered up waiting for the MSAN itself.

Closer to delivery time I imagine that cover will be replaced by the MSAN.

---------- Post added at 19:55 ---------- Previous post was at 19:52 ----------



The 4 million premises, £3 billion Lightning is the first phase of the project. If it goes as planned VM can and will continue to build.

---------- Post added at 19:57 ---------- Previous post was at 19:55 ----------



VM are willing to suck up considerably more than £500 per premises passed during the course of this project. They will be building to completely new towns and are budgeting £750 per premises passed across the lifetime of the project.

The back end of the project here will be coming in at close to £1k per premises passed, offset by the costs of the earlier phases of the build and justified by take up and expected ARPU in those streets.

Pierre can probably pull up the details on that particular drama.

Great, so Virgin Media are going to that new estate. Interesting, as they didn't build out to a new estate that was built only 2 years ago round the corner.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by MrIca

Great, so Virgin Media are going to that new estate. Interesting, as they didn't build out to a new estate that was built only 2 years ago round the corner.

They didn't make a deal with the developer of the earlier estate either because the developer defaulted to BT or they weren't looking to build at that time.

They are pursuing new builds far more enthusiastically now for obvious reasons - it costs way less to provide cable while an estate is being built than when it's all done.