How big are VM's infills?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Chris

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.

Entirely agree. There's the cost of CPE and the cost of the equipment either end along with the cost of the installs to the however many customers are online there.

However, I still struggle to see how this could account for the difference between £300 per home passed (remember these are homes passed not customers) and £1,500+ per home passed.

In any event it's by the by. I am not going to put any more effort into this particular project as we won't be staying in the area longer-term.

[nodrogd]

Looks like Teeside is next in line for network expansion:

http://community.virginmedia.com/t5/...-p/2521045#M75

[Ignitionnet]

Making some progress but nothing concrete.

[Horizon]

Came across this video on youtube about different methods of deploying fibre cables. I must say I was impressed by some of the methods used which I've never seen done in this country before.

If you've got time to kill, have your fill (pardon the pun) of fibre laying methods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8bzZajwR50

[qasdfdsaq]

My method of laying fibre is throw money at other people to make them do it for you.

[Ignitionnet]

Yours and everyone else who is selling services on said fibre.

Apart from B4RN, whose approach was largely to have volunteer retirees do the digging

[qasdfdsaq]

Heh, nobody else will be selling services on this fibre, it's a dedicated inter-campus link we had installed a few years back. We're now the proud owners of a very long trench and a hundred manholes across the city with our company name on it. Then again I don't think most individuals would be willing to pay £700,000 to get their own fibre installed...

B4RN seemed fun though

[sollp]

Originally Posted by Horizon

Came across this video on youtube about different methods of deploying fibre cables. I must say I was impressed by some of the methods used which I've never seen done in this country before.

If you've got time to kill, have your fill (pardon the pun) of fibre laying methods:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8bzZajwR50

Health and safety would have a field day over here with the lack of signing and guarding ect.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by sollp

Health and safety would have a field day over here with the lack of signing and guarding ect.

Thankfully in Denmark they're not as obsessive compulsive about H&S as us and can actually get civil works done?

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Thankfully in Denmark they're not as obsessive compulsive about H&S as us and can actually get civil works done?

Nor France. One of a few reasons why HS2 seems to be costing about 9 times more per mile than their TGV.

Surprised I'm not forced to do a risk assessment before farting if I've had a curry the night before.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Nor France. One of a few reasons why HS2 seems to be costing about 9 times more per mile than their TGV.

Not to mention France had their high-speed link from the channel tunnel to their capital (LGV Nord) open on day one, whereas it took us a good fifteen years to do the same here with HS1, despite it being less than half the length!

Surprised I'm not forced to do a risk assessment before farting if I've had a curry the night before.

To be honest if you formally declared it as a work function you probably would.

Originally Posted by qasdfdsaq

Not to mention France had their high-speed link from the channel tunnel to their capital (LGV Nord) open on day one, whereas it took us a good fifteen years to do the same here with HS1, despite it being less than half the length!

You see the kerfuffle all the well-heeled landowners and villagers are making, just because HS2 is passing within half a mile of their homes? You can multiply that by a hundred if the British government attempted to use the same methods the French do when they want to bulldoze their latest grand projet through the countryside. There are good reasons why major civil engineering projects move more slowly and cost more money in the UK, and on the whole, I think our restrictions on the State's ability to confiscate land and act regardless of local concerns is worth it.

[qasdfdsaq]

Originally Posted by Chris

You see the kerfuffle all the well-heeled landowners and villagers are making, just because HS2 is passing within half a mile of their homes? You can multiply that by a hundred if the British government attempted to use the same methods the French do when they want to bulldoze their latest grand projet through the countryside. There are good reasons why major civil engineering projects move more slowly and cost more money in the UK, and on the whole, I think our restrictions on the State's ability to confiscate land and act regardless of local concerns is worth it.

I don't. I counter with the example here in Aberdeen where the city bypass, which is almost unanimously supported across the city and would benefit hundreds of thousands, has been held up for the better part of a decade because of one selfish prick who doesn't want it near his back yard.

Meanwhile we continue to suffer noise, pollution, traffic, and a number of people have died from fatal road accidents due to the volume of trucks ploughing through residential parts of the city.

Sure, the argument for broadband or high speed rail improving or saving lives is somewhat harder to make but the government needs stronger powers to confiscate land IMO.

That bypass was overdue 20 years ago and I think indolence and mismanagement by the council, the Scottish office and now the Scottish "government" have all played their part. Plenty of civil projects, larger and smaller, have gone ahead, with due consideration given to local concerns, in far less time than that.

[qasdfdsaq]

Well, I'm sure incompetence plays a part but the most recent delay was due to some case being taken all the way up to the supreme court to demand the right to object to the government's plans...

To some extent I'd prefer the system in use in Switzerland, where public policy decisions are made directly by the voting public, not the politicians. Public interest seizures and/or works should of course provide adequate compensation for those who lose property but having major projects get held up for years going around the houses in the court system over a technicality is ludicrous.

I'm still impressed how China have gone from virtually no high speed rail at all to the biggest high speed rail network in the world over the course of barely a decade. Partly helped by the government's tendency to make people disappear when they object.