Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: niemand on January 12, 2018, 11:01:19 PM
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https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2018/01/virgin-media-uk-shelve-possible-northumberland-broadband-rollout.html
The Northumberland County Council in England has said it is “disappointed” after being informed that Virgin Media had decided to “halt plans” for expanding their ultrafast cable broadband and TV network into the rural county. At present the operator has virtually no presence in the area.
A Virgin Media Spokesperson told ISPreview.co.uk:
“We’re expanding our network in the North East as part of our nationwide effort to bring ultrafast broadband to new areas.
Our expansion is entirely privately funded, so we need certain criteria to be met before building. We are committed to extending our network into areas where supportive local authorities can create the best conditions for rollout of our services.
We’ll be meeting with Northumberland County Council soon to discuss potential ways in which we can work together to make ultrafast broadband in Northumberland a reality as quickly as possible.”
Building networks is expensive. VM are stricter over keeping to their budgets now.
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sounds like it will go ahead when a subsidy is provided if they having a meeting
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Hard to read between lines, but it would appear that, as with any commercial Telco they have a budget they now wish to stick to. Having gone over anticipated £670 per premise in other areas.. (ie actual cost was more than projected cost) they are taking a more cautious approach in urban areas.
I should imagine they may well do some coverage in Northumberland and not rule it out completely, but it sounds like they are now being a lot more cautious after having had fingers burnt and not getting projected ROI in some of the more remote areas. They could well be angling for a subsidy, but a lot of councils are themselves stretched for funding.
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Would it be lazy and churlish of me to just copy/paste my own comments from the website?
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This will be good news for Wildcard Networks who are in talks with rural areas in Newcastle (search "NCL Great Park - Fibre Broadband Campaign" for example) , however, just like Virgin they need to get enough concrete commitments from residents to justify the expense.
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Hard to read between lines, but it would appear that, as with any commercial Telco they have a budget they now wish to stick to. Having gone over anticipated £670 per premise in other areas.. (ie actual cost was more than projected cost) they are taking a more cautious approach in urban areas.
I should imagine they may well do some coverage in Northumberland and not rule it out completely, but it sounds like they are now being a lot more cautious after having had fingers burnt and not getting projected ROI in some of the more remote areas. They could well be angling for a subsidy, but a lot of councils are themselves stretched for funding.
Being local to this area I can confirm Virgin are already installing ducting in Cramlington as part of this, haven't seen any work elsewhere in Northumberland but that's not to say there isn't any!
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Heh, wonder what concessions they have extracted?
Leeds have made a lot of money from fines for poor reinstatement quality, perhaps they were looking for assurances over that and the availability of roadworks permits?
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I actually can't see any planning applications for any of this from Virgin on the Northumberland council planning portal, figured they'd be needed for something such as digging up roads?
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It won't be under planning, you need to look for street work permits. They may be shown on www.roadworks.org or Northumberland councils may have their own website for it.
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That'll be why I couldn't find them! :D
Yes, they're on roadworks :)