NTL Pull Out Of The North

LegacyUser

http://www.ireland.com/newspaper/finance/2001/0717/fin5.htm

its doesnt come out and say it direct but you can take this as them saying theres no money in investing in ireland,
and why would there be wiht *****s in the goverment standing in you way and do goodies ****ing about the roads being ripped up, o no we cant stop to corpo ripping up the road 15 time then esb another 15 and then the water works crowd another 15 times, but me cant fine the ass of telecoms trying to drag our ass into the 21th century, milk them while you can you the goverment slogan,

LegacyUser

While I share your frustration with NTL and the state of the IT infrastructure in Ireland I don't see the connection between a proposed call centre in NI (part of the UK) and digging up roads in the Republic. Many similar projects promised for NI have fallen by the wayside for a variety of reasons.

NTL are in a bad way in all countries where they operate and there is no way that you can blame the Irish Government for their worldwide problems. NTL took over Cablelink (at the time the largest cable system in Europe)and managed to make it even worse than it was before the takeover.

NTL appear to have spent a fortune on plans to supply services to areas where there was no real interest in the services being offered (according to reports less than 100 people within the interactive services areas indicated interest in cable Internet)yet people who are interested are being told that they may have to wait three years. Eighteen months ago I was told that while they were connecting 4000 homes per week (apparently not true)I would have to wait three years for Internet access and Digital TV. Last month I was told that it could be three years before I receive any of their enhanced services.

NTL are currently offering all sort of reasons for missing their targets:
(1) Insufficient interest in the services being offered ... their problem because they targeted the wrong areas.
(2) Upgrading the infrastructure was more expensive than expected ... this is probably directly related to the first excuse, if people are not interested in your value added services then the cost of upgrading becomes very expensive.
(3) Lack of access to the last mile ... as they own an independent network I don't understand why this should be a problem.

Has anyone actually got a chance to use their enhanced services such as Digital TV or Cable Internet?

LegacyUser

i just saying the roads as an example of goverment policy that while their down kick them in the head and emepty their pockets.

The call centre is a sign they want out,

As for the last mile and all that, it would give them greater access to clients in areas were they dont have a network, ie Ireland,

And the Fact that everybody know eircom is to blame for everything

[This message has been edited by Gladiator (edited 17-07-2001).]

dahamsta

Have to agree with infomat Gladiator - NTL in the North has nothing to do with NTL in the Republic. It's a completely different story. Yes, it's an example of government policy, but it's not our government, so it has no bearing on us...

adam

LegacyUser

NTL are in a bad way in all countries where they operate and there is no way that you can blame the Irish Government for their worldwide problems. NTL took over Cablelink (at the time the largest cable system in Europe)and managed to make it even worse than it was before the takeover.

The road digging thing is more the corpo rather than the Government. As far as I can see, the Government is very pro-telecoms investment. The problem for us is that is biased towards large multinationals rather than small business and home users.

Now the NTL thing. Much has been said here and in the press about the NTLs financial problems. These may be in part due to high price paid for networks in the UK and Ireland. Whatever.

The fact remains that they obtained exclusive rights to relay signals in Dublin, Waterford and Galway. There may be companies without the financial problems of NTL out there. We don't get the choice of switching to them because of this exclusive licence. Basically, we are dragged down by NTLs financial problems.

I don't blame the Government for NTL's financial problems. I blame them for locking us in to a company with financial problems.

Exclusive licences should have a price attached to them. It was intended that NTL, in return for the exclusive rights to take money off a large proportion of the Irish population, would upgrade the network to support broadband, interactive services and telephony in competition to Eircom's local loop. Instead, we are getting extra channels squeezed down existing one-way infrastructure using digital compression (many of these will be pay channels) and there's nothing we can do about it.

If the conditions were stated properly, as intended (see my earlier post), then the state would be in a position to force the sale of the NTL network to a company with better finances so that the upgrade work could continue.

LegacyUser

see theres the key word, persume,
honously do you think obrien, one of the other major biders for Cablelink would have been able to invest more, or even cable and wireless,

Who would take over ntls networks now, no one

LegacyUser

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Gladiator:
see theres the key word, persume,
honously do you think obrien, one of the other major biders for Cablelink would have been able to invest more, or even cable and wireless,</font>

We will never know. They didn't get the chance, nor will they.

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">
Who would take over ntls networks now, no one</font>

Maybe someone who didn't spend a fortune buying up all the UK cable companies until the money ran out.