Virgin finally gets property developers on board

[BenMcr]

http://pressoffice.virginmedia.com/p...053&highlight=

Virgin Media has partnered with one of the UK’s major house builders, Persimmon Homes, to bring new home buyers the benefits of a fully-connected digital home.

Persimmon designs and builds around 10,000 new homes across the UK each year. Now, as part of a UK-wide roll out programme, selected Persimmon new build homes in cabled areas will start to be constructed with built-in access to Virgin Media’s fibre optic broadband, TV, and telephone services, ready from the minute the buyers move in. Customers moving to non-cabled areas will have the option of Virgin Media’s National service delivering up to 20Mb broadband over telephone lines.

[joglynne]

Considering how simple it must be to plan and lay the the cables etc when a new development is being built I can't believe Virgin Media and it's predecessors haven't done this before. It must make sense on a cost/profit basis.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by joglynne

Considering how simple it must be to plan and lay the the cables etc when a new development is being built I can't believe Virgin Media and it's predecessors haven't done this before. It must make sense on a cost/profit basis.

Not as simple that ,joglynne ,it is the developers choice as to what services are placed .The developer will have to look at the selling cost of the house to try to recoup the cost of laying the cable as they will have to pay virgin ,that cost will have to be added to the house price or absorbed by the house builder.Obviously Persimmon homes feel that they can add this service to new build houses and either absorb the cost or profit from it by using it as a selling point now that faster speeds are available and people prefer VM broardband to BT's

You are correct though that laying the cables will be much easier and preferable to vm

[joglynne]

Martyn why will the Builder have to pay for the work to be done when VM presumably foot the cost of the materials, equipment and man power when they cable an area and connect a property to their cable network?

If this is the case then VM must have offered some form of incentive as the builder seems to be in a no win situation of increased costs for very little, if no, added profit.

I could understand them working in tandem, work on large housing developments is often carried out by both joint, and subcontractors, having VM subcontractors on site would just be another area that the Site Manager would feed into his organization plan. No wonder no other builders have wanted to do it in the past if they have to foot the bill whilst the cable company makes a profit with very little outlay.

[Pierre]

publicity excercise only.

The reality is that VM have been installing infrastructure in New Developments for years.

There was a whole team dedicated to doing it, affiliated to the sales dept, if remember.
VM would supply all the materials and the developer would lay it.

Also there was a time that Local Authorities insisted that cable infrastructure was laid when the development was built or they wouldn't adopt it, because they feared they would take on the maintenance of the highway only to have it dug up by the cable company.

[martyh]

Originally Posted by joglynne

Martyn why will the Builder have to pay for the work to be done when VM presumably foot the cost of the materials, equipment and man power when they cable an area and connect a property to their cable network?

If this is the case then VM must have offered some form of incentive as the builder seems to be in a no win situation of increased costs for very little, if no, added profit.

I could understand them working in tandem, work on large housing developments is often carried out by both joint, and subcontractors, having VM subcontractors on site would just be another area that the Site Manager would feed into his organization plan. No wonder no other builders have wanted to do it in the past if they have to foot the bill whilst the cable company makes a profit with very little outlay.

The main contractor ,in this case persimmon homes ,have to pay the cost of everything,the difference in this case is that a partnership has been announced .I would suggest that it is being done that way so persimmon don't have to pay the subcontractor for the service and VM benefit from the increased customer base .This appears to be a growing trend as BT are doing the same in kent and most house builders(nowadays) look at having pre-installed broadband as an important selling point whereas previously it was not concidered as not many people had it and it was unclear how many people would actually use it .
The other thing to remember is that on a new build site it will be unlikely to be VM that actually do the digging and laying of the service it will most likely be the usual service contractor i.e the one that will be digging the trenches and laying the pipe work for the electric,gas,water ect and they will need paying by either persimmon or VM and VM will have no guarentee how many of those houses fitted with cable will actually subscribe,this is why it has not been done before cost to profit was always a bit unclear

[sollp]

Originally Posted by joglynne

Considering how simple it must be to plan and lay the the cables etc when a new development is being built I can't believe Virgin Media and it's predecessors haven't done this before. It must make sense on a cost/profit basis.

You need a slap for talking perfect sense, but unfortunately as NTL and now Virginmedia are so hell bent on saving money to actually spend a small amount on doing this, that, as you say would save on spending a larger amount in the future, to them isn't an option, as spending nothing makes better sense to them.

[MrB]

Our housing development went up over 10 years ago and C&W/NTL cable trunking was laid up to the front door on many of the properties. Unfortunately, no one told the VM computer system this as despite the green box on the street opposite our house and green pipe by the front door (and neighbours having it), it took a lot of phone calls, escalation and a "spotter" to have to come out to finally get my house connected (two months later, 9 years after the estate was built!).

MrB