Article : NTL & UGC

bringitdown

From: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single4785

“If UGC succeeds in acquiring NTL Ireland in six to nine months, it will be able to upgrade its network very quickly and ultimately offer 15Mbps to 30Mbps of always-on internet, free phone calls and television services. Dublin has the highest penetration of cable than any city in Europe. The only problem is the cable network is in bad shape and needs investment. In the US, cable companies such as ComCast and Time Warner are outperforming traditional fixed-line telecom companies."

Drools.

Blaster99

All good, but I think much the same was said when NTL took over Cablelink. And much the same was said when NTL announced that they were rolling out broadband to more areas a year or so ago. If they do seriously roll out broadband on the cable network and offer proper speeds, that would be excellent. I won't hold my breath, though.

vibe666

quick, everyone hold your breath, NTL is going to give us all cheap high speed broadband!

unkel

Holding my breath

a cable modem on coaxial cable can hold 50 times more capacity than copper wire and as a result Eircom will have a real competitor on its hands

bk

vibe666 wrote:

quick, everyone hold your breath, NTL is going to give us all cheap high speed broadband!

The thing is they have already given me that, I have 1.5m for €50 and in a months time it's going to be 3m for €45, that is very impressive

Yes, in the past I have been very critical of NTL, however they seem to have turned over a new leaf in the last 3 to 6 months. They seem to be agressively rolling out BB in Dublin and now they are starting in Galway and Waterford also.

Personally my opinion of them is starting to change and I'm willing to give them a chance.

The difference between NTL:UK and UGC is that UGC's financils are very healthy, while they did make a loss last year, it seems to be on the back of very heavy investment in infrastructure and new markets, while their debt is relatively low.

In the markets they have entered they have invested heavily in upgrading their infrastructure and their most profitable sector has been the triple play of video, voice and data. As a company UGC are not interested in video only markets, they are really only interested in high speed data markets and they seem to pride themselves on having one of the best IP backbones in Europe with plenty of capacity for offering video over IP on it. All of this is very positive for the future of NTL:Ireland and the Irish BB market.

BTW we are unlikely to see speeds of 20m soon, a lot of this bandwidth will be used up by Video on Demand (VoD) services and Video over IP. A good example is a colleague of mine living in San Francisco. He has cable BB at 4m, however it is actually more like a 12m connection because he can actually get real time VoD movies over it.

This means he rents a movie for 24 hours and he can pause, rewind, fastforward all he likes for the 24 hour period and this is all supplied with just a little buffering in his cable box over the other 8m of the cable bandwidth.

Infini

Oh My GOD!!! :eek:
Please Be true, PLEASE BE TRUE!!!

causal

There is certainly great potential for the cable networks and data*
The future could be bright**, I'm hopeful it will be

*data - whatever it may be (text, audio, audiovisual)
**bright - very subtle pun on the laser light in optical fibres being the future

causal

crawler

I believe they will succeed....it can be done, it just takes investment and if done correctly I would think that it could change many many things.

There is simply more available frequency in Co-ax than copper no matter what technology is used.....

Only thing is, it will take time

Infini

Hope they do upgrade. Then they'll be finally someone who could whip eircons ass up and down Dublin for their crappy service.

causal

Exactly. Imagine if ntl offered a service throughout Dublin (&Galway&Waterford) similar to the Cablesurf service of 9Mbps/512kbps no cap for €40 per month :eek:

They'd have to get the competition authority involved - coz there would be no competition!!

causal

AdMMM

crawler wrote:

I believe they will succeed....it can be done, it just takes investment and if done correctly I would think that it could change many many things.

There is simply more available frequency in Co-ax than copper no matter what technology is used.....

Only thing is, it will take time

It would take time... and money.

With the latest technologies coming at a premium, and customers always demanding lower prices it would take UGC decades to make back the money. However, if they do invest in it, it would surely propel Ireland into one of the front runners in broadband terms for many years to come.

However I feel by time the required investment is given the go ahead it will be too late and Ireland will only be bringing itself back onto level terms infrastructure wise with other countries instead of trying to surpass them!

Serbian

Blaster99 wrote:

All good, but I think much the same was said when NTL took over Cablelink. And much the same was said when NTL announced that they were rolling out broadband to more areas a year or so ago. If they do seriously roll out broadband on the cable network and offer proper speeds, that would be excellent. I won't hold my breath, though.

I think this post is pretty much spot on. The theoretical top speed for ADSL is 8 Mbit/sec but we aren't going to see that for a good while in Ireland. It's probably not even possible on the crappy telephone infrastructure we have here. So, just because some article states what the capabilities of Cable are, it really doesn't mean we are going to see them anytime soon.

It probably would make more sense to UGC to just stay a little bit ahead of the competition (pretty much like what NTL are doing now - eircom offer 2 mbit, NTL offer 3 etc) as they will save on bandwith costs and everyone will be happy as they are getting the fastest service in Ireland.

causal

Serbian wrote:

the fastest service in Ireland.

Ehh, did you see my post (#10) above about Cablesurf?

I do agree with the other things you said though.

causal

Nietzschean

causal wrote:

Ehh, did you see my post (#10) above about Cablesurf?

I do agree with the other things you said though.

causal

considering how much of the population cable surf serve they can be dis-regarded as far as NTL are concerned. They are in no competing markets for one

KTRIC

I'd be able to download my *cough* spreadsheats *cough* alot quicker

causal

Darth Bobo wrote:

considering how much of the population cable surf serve they can be dis-regarded as far as NTL are concerned. They are in no competing markets for one

NTL do not offer the fastest service in Ireland. The statement I was commenting on was

everyone will be happy as they are getting the fastest service in Ireland.

As for NTL not being in competing markets with Cablesurf - that's not certain: NTL are now rolling out in Waterford as per this thread, and Dungarvan is only about 20 miles from Waterford city. So there'll be a big difference in the two offerings in Waterford:
Cablesurf:- €40 - 9Mbps - 512kbps - no cap
NTL:

---

€45 - 3Mbps - 300kbps - 40GB cap

causal

Nietzschean

yes but my point still stands NTL will not roll out anywhere another cable provider is already present, it just wouldn't be sensible regardless of the others BB offering(why goto a competing market).

As for ntl offering faster service in ireland, have you used this cablesurf in dungarven ? what are their backbone speeds like? is this 9mbit achieved often? etc...

Serbian

causal wrote:

NTL do not offer the fastest service in Ireland.

Point taken, thought do Cablesurf have any plans to expand their offering outside of Waterford?

causal

Darth Bobo wrote:

As for ntl offering faster service in ireland, have you used this cablesurf in dungarven ? what are their backbone speeds like? is this 9mbit achieved often? etc...

It seems to be pretty good, have a peek at this thread.

serbian wrote:

Point taken, thought do Cablesurf have any plans to expand their offering outside of Waterford?

I don't know. But I wonder if NTL (or UGC) will expand into Dungarvan - by buying out Cablesurf!

causal

Mutant_Fruit

Out of interest... is this UGC the same UGC as the company behind UGC cinemas?

Creamy Goodness

all i care about is that they hurry up and upgrade bray.

Serbian

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Out of interest... is this UGC the same UGC as the company behind UGC cinemas?

Apparently so, but they also happen to be one of the largest cable broadband providers in the world. See: http://www.ugceurope.com/. According to their main site, they also already own Chorus. (http://www.unitedglobal.com/euMain.cfm#ireland)

Rodo

Darth Bobo wrote:

yes but my point still stands NTL will not roll out anywhere another cable provider is already present, it just wouldn't be sensible regardless of the others BB offering(why goto a competing market).

As for ntl offering faster service in ireland, have you used this cablesurf in dungarven ? what are their backbone speeds like? is this 9mbit achieved often? etc...

The cost of another cable company going in while there is already a catv business in operating would be madness, the cost of comissioning a project like that would bankrupt any cable company, unless your mister chelsea !!!!

Nietzschean

Rodo wrote:

The cost of another cable company going in while there is already a catv business in operating would be madness, the cost of comissioning a project like that would bankrupt any cable company, unless your mister chelsea !!!!

not what i said?

Raoul Duke

Serbian wrote:

Apparently so, but they also happen to be one of the largest cable broadband providers in the world. See: http://www.ugceurope.com/. According to their main site, they also already own Chorus. (http://www.unitedglobal.com/euMain.cfm#ireland)

The UGC cinema chain were sold off last Decemberish. The largest chain in the UK now owns them. I forget their name.

causal

Dangit, I was anticipating a serious Video On Demand catalogue there

causal

Sarsfield

See here http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0509/NTL.html

Moriarty

upc.ie has been registered by them.

Wonder how long regulatory approval will take now.

morlan

The sale of NTL Ireland is seen as one of the preparatory steps before NTL's widely-expected merger with Telewest Global.

This is getting confusing!

crawler

Moriarty wrote:

upc.ie has been registered by them.

Wonder how long regulatory approval will take now.

7-9 months.

More here http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single4792

Irishstabber

Informed sources have told siliconrepublic.com that UGC — with a war chest of €1bn for infrastructure and acquisitions

God I love that sentence.
Something that springs to my mind is...can we expect a name change?