UK Broadband suffers £37.5m loss after big Relish investment

Only 6,250 subscribers?

Or have I got that wrong?

At what point do you realise...

That (A) the marketing space for consumer comms if spaffed full of similar "hip and beardy" post-modern sounding companies shilling this stuff to the point of overload; that (B) the majority of people are just past caring because it'll be a shit service - despite what the marketing says otherwise, and (C) most likely seem to prefer to make do with what they get from their current mobile provider because it's just less hassle that way?

Perhaps it's just the way I read the story, or perhaps it's they way it is written - but I sensed a germ of that insidious self-entitlement creeping into their statement.

Who?

If you've never heard of them, it's not entirely your fault, but they have been around in the UK for more than a decade, and every time anyone notices them, their service has a different name (perhaps because the previousl one got nowhere and they don't want the connection to be made (sic)).

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/06/pccw_broadband_netvigator/

"UK Broadband - the wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong telecoms giant PCCW - has finally launched its wireless broadband service in the UK. The Netvigator service is to be made available in the Thames Valley first, in Aldershot, Maidenhead, Reading, Slough, Windsor and Wokingham.

UK Broadband is to announce plans to roll out the service in the UK and Northern Ireland once the initial launch of Netvigator has been completed. Its 512k service costs £18, while the 1Mb service costs £28 a month and there don't appear to be any up-front charges.

[snip]

UK Broadband acquired 13 of the 15 3.4GHz licenses auctioned in the UK last year to enable wireless broadband services. It later snapped up the remaining two licences to give them national coverage."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/09/15/pccw_uk_broadband_wireless/

"“[snip] we expect to roll out VoIP when we roll out the nationwide service,” said Berriman, which he concedes might be as soon as the first quarter of 2005."

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/11/25/pccw_broadband/

"PCCW has shrugged off reports that it has ditched plans for a nation-wide roll-out of its wireless broadband service in the UK insisting it never committed to a countrywide roll-out of the service.

According to the FT, PCCW is backing away from ambitious plans to roll-out its wireless broadband service because it would be too expensive.

UK Broadband - the wholly owned subsidiary of Hong Kong telecoms giant PCCW - soft launched its wireless broadband service in May this year. The Netvigator service - which costs £18 a month for a 512k service - was made available initially in the Thames Valley."

And a few more too, over the years:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/01/pccw_cautious/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/09/02/pccw_now/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/10/12/pccw_vodafone/

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/23/ofcom_pccw_spectrum/

And then I gave up... Meanwhile Ofcon stood on the sidelines for years, pleased at the income they'd "achieved", ignoring the fact that no matching service was delivered in any meaningful way.

But PCCW didn't give up. In 2011 they said they were going to roll out something LTE-based in Swindon (or maybe Swidon :)) Has it happened? Have a guess...

http://m.theregister.co.uk/2011/09/26/swidon_lte/

And here we are again more than a decade since it all started, in 2016 (nearly), playing the same "will they won't they" game

What gives?

What about the usual suspects?

At least nobody's blamed Openreach.

Well not yet, anyway...

It's not bad at all, very good value and unlimited

I have been using it in London EC1 and for £20 a month is good value. UNLIMITED.

Speed 50mbs down 10 up. In some busy times (here that is during the day) it can now fall to 7.4mbs down 1.2mbs up..... still faster than I can get with Sky/BT locally!

Designed to be a consumer white good, plug and play the call centre is annoying when talking to the about NAT etc. Their response is if it is not doing what you want send it back and cancel contract.

My experience with it is here https://bulger.co.uk/blogs/

Shame if they go down. It is a very good idea, implementation poor with no information as to what it is. The base product cannot be called home broadband without wires. Once set up in right area is is remarkable value.

Is it really?

"Once set up in right area it is remarkable value."

£20 per month for limited area coverage doesn't sound much of a bargain to me.

Perhaps it is my Scottish birth and upbringing making me think that...