Cable our streets

[Adam2610]

Hi, I have been requesting Virgin to cable our streets for over 10 years now and I never hear from anyone.  I live in Denmead in Hampshire and 95% of the village has been cabled for Virgin services.  The four roads where I live were built in 1995.  Homes that had been built in 2000 also did not have the services but four years later this was installed for them.  The road directly behind my home has a Virgin cabinet and the street is all cabled.  Could someone please give me some information as I have over 50 other homeowners at least that are interested in your services.

thanks,

Adam

[nodrogd · Accepted solution]

This is a typical situation with the legacy HFC cable system like you have in your area. This only allows for a finite number of connections in any network segment. Any roads that were Private, or otherwise had an embargo attached at build were excluded from the original cable builds in the 1990s. If some segments did have the capacity & it was economically viable (HFC build is very expensive), some of the network was expanded, but this no longer happens. A few areas with a large infill (several hundred houses) have been added by means of fibre RFoG overbuild, but the network alterations are such that smaller expansion is again not viable.

The good news is that VM is moving away from traditional cable services in a rolling programme over the next 4 years, that will see HFC replaced with full fibre plus the use of third party ducting where suitable.

[Adam2610]

Thanks for the reply.  Fingers crossed for something to happen in the next 4 years then although my son who enjoys gaming will have probably moved out by then and we will probably find that 15mbps is enough for my wife and I to stream tv without it buffering 🤣

[nodrogd]

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@Adam2610 wrote:

Thanks for the reply.  Fingers crossed for something to happen in the next 4 years then although my son who enjoys gaming will have probably moved out by then and we will probably find that 15mbps is enough for my wife and I to stream tv without it buffering 🤣

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Might be a good thing anyway. DOCSIS Cable Broadband is susceptible to high latency issues, which is as much of a problem for gaming as slow speeds are.

[Roger_Gooner]

Your best bet is that Openreach installs fibre. I won't hold out hope for VM's fibre as this is being installed by using existing ducting.

[Adam2610]

That would be ideal, but I can’t see Openreach doing any upgrades soon either.

i should have moved 10 years ago 🤣