back to article Virgin Media cool on cable wholesale plans

Virgin Media has denied a report it has secret plans to wholesale access to its cable network to broadband and phone competitors next year. The Guardian today claimed chief executive Neil Berkett wants to open up Virgin Media's infrastructure in 18 months' time. The firm has long considered following BT's Openreach setup by …

COMMENTS

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Coat

    Would help go towards servicing their debts

    Every little helps!

  2. Nick Palmer
    Thumb Down

    Eh?

    "investing in broadband upgrades." in VM's case appears to consist of trumpeting ever higher headline speeds whilst imposing increasingly onerous traffic management on the people trying to use them...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Cable available WITH support?!?

    No wonder Virgin aren't interested; one decent company buying cable access wholesale AND providing support to their customers would destroy Virgin's retail operation. Presumably such a 'partner company' would also be motivated to peppershot Virgin's 'Unlimited Broadband' spiel (unless they got an exemption from the dictionary as well of course)!

  4. Rob Beard
    Thumb Up

    Re: Cable available WITH support?!?

    Now hang on just a minute... Carphone Warehouse, Orange or *shudder* Tiscalli could become resellers of the service!

    Still in about 11 months my contract will be up with Virgin, I'm happy where I am at the moment (apart from annoying crossed line which still isn't fixed) but if someone providing Virgin cable via wholesale can do a good offer then I'd be possibly inclined to switch.

    Rob

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Stop

    market leading retail services..

    If VM opened up their network to companies that have a clue how to run a retail operation, their retail division will implode within weeks. I'd leave these chancers at the drop of a hat if there were any real choice in my area.

    Their current "try it on":-

    Broadband'L' at £20pm is actually their Upgraded 'M' service that carries entirely different limits under their AUP to Broadband 'L'. It's amazing how you can advertise one thing then provide something entirely different.

    Chancers & liars the lot of 'em.

  6. James Robertson

    why would they

    That like saying that Sky have planes to let anyone show there HD programs - not

  7. Anonymous Coward
    Unhappy

    Why should cable broadband

    be monopolised? BT had to open up their infrastructure. I like the cable system, but I don't want my account phormed. As it stands, i have to leave cable broadband. But if the network is opened up, I can go with a supplier who won't phorm me

  8. adam
    Paris Hilton

    oh no... not again

    You had to do it again didint you.. mention those two letters... V M

    Each and everytime i hear those words i have a shudder.

    Mother of all broadband

    fibre optic super highway

    50mb blistering service

    well ha.

    try 4 months of hell, over 150 phone calls, 30 engineer visits, road dug up outside house, garden dug up in some kind of time team dig-stylee, and its STILL faster browsing the web on my poxy (or should that read proxy) mobile phone than using my "child of 14.4k" broadband.

    Stay clear, stay very clear of anything to do with VM in my opinion - you have been warned !!!!!!!!

    If they cannot offer a decent 10 or 20mb service then why oh why oh why start offering 50mb, let alone start talking about wholesale access and 100mb.

    Paris - cos i need to take my frustrations out on someone

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Happy

    "increasingly anomalous"

    What, so not like Sky's closed satellite TV network monopoly then? Nah.

    BTW the difference with BT would be that BT's infrastructure was paid for by the public purse, whereas the cable infrastructure was paid for by commercial borrowing against future revenue.

    Oh and

    <flame bait>

    I'm interested to know what people do that makes STM "increasingly onerous". Nine gigs a day isn't enough?

    </bait>

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    @AC 14:33

    "BTW the difference with BT would be that BT's infrastructure was paid for by the public purse, whereas the cable infrastructure was paid for by commercial borrowing against future revenue."

    You have it a bit backwards there. BT's infrastructure was paid for by shareholders who bought the network off the taxpayer.

    Virgin's infrastructure was paid for by various shareholders (mostly small shareholders at that) for a range of different companies. Many of these were sold for a pittance to Telewest or later NTL when they went bust. NTL topped the whole lot off by going into chapter 11 and writing off a whopping $6bn of debt.

    So the taxpayer (or at least some of them) paid for both networks, but at least the BT network was sold!

  11. Simon Painter
    Thumb Up

    this is a genius move...

    1. Open up the wholesale network

    2. Get other retailers to handle the dirty little customer sorts

    3. Close down your own retail supplier

    4. Screw the customers some more with traffic shaping, phorm etc without having to pick up the phone when the angry customers come a callin'

    5. Profit

  12. Si

    Share the Phorm love!

    Will they also include their lovely bandwidth limiter with that package?

    VM don't have the bandwidth for existing customers you have to wonder how they can have the bandwidth to flog to other people...

  13. Defiant
    Stop

    Old News

    Isn't this antique news?. AOL has been using the Virgin Media network for year

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Public Purse?

    "BTW the difference with BT would be that BT's infrastructure was paid for by the public purse, whereas the cable infrastructure was paid for by commercial borrowing against future revenue."

    I'm not sure the GPO installed all that many DSLAMs really. Or a backbone ATM network. Or any ISP infrastructure at all. At best you can say that BT got a head start over the competition and regulation was put in place to give the newcomers a chance to catch up - which they do indeed seem to have done.

    I'm off to the Mini dealer to demand one at cost price as nationalisation in the 70's means that anything with a Mini badge on it must have been paid for from the public purse....

  15. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Down

    Ah. Virgin Media...

    I had VM installed last week. The engineers were completely incompetent - they tacked the cable OVER the pavement and then covered it with a ridge of cement - they ran a cable up the back of the drainpipe and used STICKY TAPE to secure it, and they managed to rip several holes in my flatmate's rug, which they then helpfully rolled up and put out of the way so that we wouldn't notice until after they'd gone.

    Still, I should be grateful they turned up at all seeing as they were due to install it 2 weeks beforehand but cancelled it without bothering to tell me.

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