I thought I'd start a thread for those who'd like to share their experience of their early days on cable.
I was living in the London Borough of Haringey and around 1989 Cable London started to dig up the roads and pavements for their ducts. A few short years later cable TV was offered but I resisted, partly because the installation charge was high (can't remember how much but might have been £50-£150). However, one day a card dropped onto my doormat offering free installation and I succumbed, so I became a cable TV customer about 26 years ago in spring 1998.
I have to say that it was like day and night as I suddenly had access to dozens of channels. In early 1998 (ITV2 was yet to launch) there were just five terrestrial TV channels (BBC One, BBC Two, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5) and the latter was grotty due to poor reception. Well, Channel 5 was clear on cable and it was still grotty. The channel numbers didn't favour PSBs, so BBC One was on channel 31. An oddity was that some channels shared a channel number, so you'd get Nickelodeon from 0600-1900 and Paramount Comedy from 1900-0400 on channel 29.
I was then offered landline but, with fears of problems relating to year 2000, I put that off for a while.
In around 2000 there was a soft launch of digital TV and I, being a techie, heard about it and subscribed. Telewest, which by then had taken full control of Cable London, sent me a digital STB to replace the analogue one, and I reckon I could tell the difference in quality.
In about October 2001 I subscribed to cable broadband which was oddly called Blueyonder by Telewest. Initially the price had been £50pm but it had greatly reduced by then, so I replaced my BT Openworld broadband with Telewest's. I think the speed for both were 0.5Mbps which looks ridiculous now but in comparison dial-up speeds capped out of 56Kbps. Also it was fixed price, so no paying for both phone and internet usage, and you could use the internet and phone at the same time. I'm fairly sure that the tech had to get the MAC address of my PC's network adapter card and phone it to an office so that I could get onto the network. For about a year the broadband lacked some reliability but has been good since.
I think that it was around 2001 that I also ditched BT and subscribed to Telewest's landline, thus making me a Triple Play customer.
In 2005 I moved to the London Borough of Hillingdon and took my services across to what was another Telewest area. I have to say that these services on my HFC network have been very reliable even though the coaxial cable going into my distribution cabinet must be about 25 years old. I do recommend cable to people but with the caveat that customer service is certainly lacking.
I have some information about Cable London, and rather than keeping it on my PC I thought it best to share it.
Brief history
Cable London plc was the operating name and brand of a cable telecommunications company that operated in five north London boroughs from the 1980s until the company was purchased by Telewest in 1999. Following the privatisation in 1984 of BT, the company was founded as Cable Camden in 1984 by Stephen Kirk, with investors Malcolm Gee (of Levy Gee), Andrew Karney (of Logica) and Jerrold Nathan; the original premises were in the Elephant House building, and across the road in the then premises of Chrysalis, in Hawley Crescent, Camden Town, London NW1 8NP. The first sales office was set up in Royal College Street, Camden Town and later at 62 Camden Road, NW1 9DR. Cable London's network covered 90% of the 440,000 homes and 40,000 businesses in its boroughs and it provided cable television, cable telephone and internet services to over 100,000 business and residential customers by late 1999, employing 574 people. A text-only television channel - CLTV - was provided as a requirement of the franchise to offer local television services.
In the early 2000s the company brand and identity fell into disuse as the company and customers became fully integrated in Telewest.
Cable London operated in five London boroughs through four franchises regulated by the Independent Television Commission (ITC). The four franchises were named for four separate companies, all part of Cable London plc:
Cable Camden Ltd - for services in the London Borough of Camden
Cable Enfield Ltd - for services in the London Borough of Enfield
Cable Hackney and Islington Ltd - for services in the London Borough of Hackney and London Borough of Islington (this was one franchise: there was no separate franchise for either borough)
Cable Haringey Ltd - for services in the London Borough of Haringey
Investors and fate
Cable London had various small and large investors in its history including, in the early-mid 1990s the large American cable operator Comcast and the "Baby Bell" company US West, but ultimately two large companies owned 50% each - NTL and Telewest. By the late 1990s the company had become the best-performing cable operator in the UK.
In August 1999 consolidation within the cable industry took another step when loss-making Cable London, which had been owned 50:50 by NTL and Telewest, became wholly owned by Telewest which bought out NTL's shareholding for £428m. This was funded by a rights issue backed by Microsoft and Liberty Media, Telewest's two biggest shareholders.
Cable network - construction and legacy
Construction of the cable network by Cable London, all of the coaxial cables laid in green ducting beneath pavements or roads, began in the late 1980s in the London Borough of Camden, around Camden Town, and was completed in that borough by 1996. The first Cable London customers were in Camden Town and the first cable telephone customer was connected there, too, in about 1990.
Construction of the cable network in the London Borough of Enfield, around Lower Edmonton and Ponders End, and in the London Borough of Haringey, around Hornsey, also began in the late 1980s. Construction of the cable network in the London Borough of Islington and the London Borough of Hackney began around Newington Green in 1995.
The busiest years for construction of the cable network were 1994-96 and most of the planned construction of the cable network was completed by the end of 1998, thereafter only construction work necessary to connect new contracted business customers was generally being undertaken. By 1999, the majority of the cable network construction in the four franchises was completed, though small parts of the London Borough of Haringey and the London Borough of Islington were not completed and about one-third of the London Borough of Hackney had not been cabled. Of the then approximately 436,000 homes in the five boroughs, some 400,000 had been "passed" by cable, meaning that cable ducting was in the pavement or street outside those homes. Construction of the cable network under the streets, and the associated technical premises, was a very expensive business and represented a significant investment by Cable London in the telecommunications infrastructure of each of the five London Boroughs.
By 1999, the investment in Cable London's cable network was some £300m. In the early years, therefore, priority for constructing the network was given to high density areas of population, especially blocks of flats and council and private estates, where the prospect of selling residential cable television - and cable telephone - services to customers was reckoned to be higher, and the cost per 'home passed' significantly less. The policy of some local authorities of discouraging satellite dishes on council estates was helpful, incidentally, in promoting sales of cable television. Similarly, construction was undertaken early in business districts, such as Holborn, to enable sales to be made to lucrative large businesses; business telephony provided, by far, the most important revenue stream in the 1990s. Success in providing modern and less expensive business telecommunications services to the public sector also helped to determine the pace and location of construction of the cable network. The legacy of Cable London remains below, and above, the streets of north London, with the cable network beneath, evidence of the brand in covers for openings of pavements, and hundreds of street cabinets on pavements still active and serving Virgin Media cable customers.
Services and principal competitors
In the 1990s, the principal competitor for television services was BSkyB - British Sky Broadcasting. Cable London provided satellite television through its cable network without the need for a satellite dish outside the home, as well as some cable exclusive channels; in 1994 the "line-up" allowed for a maximum of 47 numbered channels, with some channels broadcasting for only part of the day. In 1994, the monthly subscription charge for the standard service of over 25 television channels was just under £2.75 per week.
I read somewhere but, annoying, I can't find the source for the claim by Cable Haringey that it was the world's first cableco to provide landline. This was relatively easy as telephone wires to residential customers were pulled through the same ducting for coaxial cables, the main competitor being BT. Cable London at first provided telephony in association with Mercury Communications. There were rather more competitors for business telecommunications services, though again BT was the principal competitor. Business television services were not big business in the 1990s and internet services were offered from the mid-1990s onwards. The main business advantage for cable companies in the 1990s was the ability to offer all three services: telephone, television and internet. For a while Cable London also offered an FM radio connection for stereo tuners; this facilitated reception of, for example, the BBC World Service in London homes. Customer "churn" was a serious issue for the cable industry in the 1990s. Telephone "exchange" numbers that were originally allocated to Cable London included the London (area codes changing from 01 to 071 and 081, to 0171 and 0181, and finally to 020) and "exchanges" 911 at first (now 7911) and, later, 681 (now 7681) and 916 (now 7916), among others.
I have a Telewest channel listing, courtesy of James Welsh, from February 2001 showing, amongst other things, the sharing of channel numbers.
01 FilmFour 18:00-06:00
01 Shop! 06:00-18:00
02 UK Gold 24 hours
03 Sky Cinema Varies
04 Living local listings
04 The Fashion Channel local listings
06 Sky News 24 hours
07 VH1 24 hours
08 CNN: Cable News Network 24 hours
09 Bloomberg 01:00-12:00
09 Travel 12:00-01:00
10 CLTV: Cable London Television local listings
10 Performance local listings
11 Sky One 24 hours
12 British Eurosport Varies
13 Sky Premier Varies
14 Sky Sports 1 Varies
15 Sky Sports 2 Varies
16 BBC Parliament 24 hours
17 Sony Entertainment Television Asia 24 hours
18 Sky Sports 3 Varies
19 Trouble 06:00-20:00
19 Bravo 20:00-06:00
21 CFN: Carlton Food Network 07:00-00:00
22 TV-X 00:00-05:30
22 Euronews 05:30-00:00
23 Sky MovieMax Varies
24 The Box 24 hours
25 MTV: Music Television 24 hours
26 Discovery Home and Leisure 06:00-16:00
26 Discovery 16:00-02:00
27 Cartoon Network 01:00-21:00
27 TNT 21:00-01:00
28 TV Travel Shop 06:00-17:00
28 Challenge TV 17:00-06:00
29 Nickelodeon 06:00-19:00
29 Paramount Comedy Channel 19:00-04:00
30 Disney Channel 06:00-00:00
31 BBC ONE 24 hours
32 BBC TWO 24 hours
33 Carlton (Mon-Fri); LWT: London Weekend Television (weekends) 24 hours
34 Channel 4 24 hours
35 Channel 5 24 hours
36 ITV2 local listings
36 Granada Plus local listings
36 Granada Men and Motors local listings
39 Playboy 20:00-00:00
39 The Adult Channel 00:00-04:00
40 BBC News 24 24 hours
41 QVC 24 hours
42 Hellenic 24 hours
43 Rai Uno 24 hours
44 RTL + 24 hours
45 TV5 24 hours
46 Sci-Fi 24 hours
47 Channel Guide 24 hours
48 The History Channel 12:00-20:00
49 Fox Kids 06:00-18:00
50 Front Row Guide 24 hours
51-54 Front Row Varies
55 E4 16:00-04:00
Started out with County Cable before it became Telecential. It was the first of the modern cable outfits to have a local channel making just 4 hours of programmes a week recorded in a studio set up at the local headend. I still have a recording of their last ever broadcast before they were shut down to make additional capacity available.
I also have the original TV channel listing from when I switched from Analogue to Digital TV in around 2006.
