Not looking good for Fibrecity

[ED209]

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/new...o_halt/?ref=mr

[Sirius]

Originally Posted by ED209

http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/new...o_halt/?ref=mr

Heard about this today from someone in the know. Its looks extremely bad is what he said.

[Ignitionnet]

Depends which way you look at it. Bad for i3, not so bad for the party that is likely going to take the project over.

[Smilie]

not good for people like me who want to get it

[Maggy J]

What about those laid off?

[weesteev]

The biggest problem for Fibrecity started when they couldnt utilise the sewers anymore and had to start digging the footpaths. They were pretty much doomed from that point. Its a shame as this looked like the only credible alternative to Virgin or BT Infinity.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Maggy J

What about those laid off?

If I sympathised every time temporary workers, or even permanent ones, lost their jobs I would be a very depressed chap.

---------- Post added at 10:37 ---------- Previous post was at 10:35 ----------

Originally Posted by weesteev

The biggest problem for Fibrecity started when they couldnt utilise the sewers anymore and had to start digging the footpaths. They were pretty much doomed from that point. Its a shame as this looked like the only credible alternative to Virgin or BT Infinity.

They had to dig anyway where sewer coverage wasn't adequate, they had been bleeding red ink for a while as you can imagine and desperately needed to start making some serious sales which just didn't happen. They were in trouble when they couldn't get a major operator on board.

[weesteev]

Correct. The problem with Fibre is that the media make it out to be the "be-all-and-end-all" connection and a small minority wil be very vocal about its distribution, but when push comes to shove companies just dont see the numbers signing up that the vocal minority believe will happen.

This is the same reason Virgins deployment isn't happening at lightning pace and BT are staggering their network upgrades with VDSL rather than straight to FTTH. Shareholders dont want to invest all that cash when the returns just potentially arent there... Verizon FIOS being the perfect example, roll out has halted to concentrate on selling to areas they have built due to low take up.

[Stuart]

This is why the government needs to finance any major roll out of fibre. Small companies (like Fibrecity) don't have the capital to finance large rollouts, and larger companies won't see the return on investment, so may not have shareholders willing to invest that much money.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Stuart

This is why the government needs to finance any major roll out of fibre. Small companies (like Fibrecity) don't have the capital to finance large rollouts, and larger companies won't see the return on investment, so may not have shareholders willing to invest that much money.

Where does giving people fibre fit into the present social priorities given that to most the only real use for 100Mbps remains downloading and uploading copyright content?

---------- Post added at 23:49 ---------- Previous post was at 23:41 ----------

Originally Posted by weesteev

Correct. The problem with Fibre is that the media make it out to be the "be-all-and-end-all" connection and a small minority wil be very vocal about its distribution, but when push comes to shove companies just dont see the numbers signing up that the vocal minority believe will happen.

This is the same reason Virgins deployment isn't happening at lightning pace and BT are staggering their network upgrades with VDSL rather than straight to FTTH. Shareholders dont want to invest all that cash when the returns just potentially arent there... Verizon FIOS being the perfect example, roll out has halted to concentrate on selling to areas they have built due to low take up.

Ah Virgin don't have the manpower to do things any faster, money isn't an issue at all as it will all get done else people will complain, it's not like BT or Verizon it's a network upgrade not a total rebuild in most cases

Unfortunately most people aren't ready to pay for quality. Even with 100Mbps set at a pretty measly 35 quid a month, 35p per Mbps per month, people are still complaining about activation fees. While this attitude, which was in no small part encouraged by regulation in the past, is prevalent there is little incentive to operators to invest in their networks and supply next generation services where people are used to 'free' broadband or broadband provided as a loss leader for other products.

Regrettably the same people whining about how expensive the services are tend to be those who are helping themselves to large amounts of copyright content with the services and using large amounts of bandwidth on them making those price points less viable for operators.

The push by Labour and Ofcom to the lowest common denominator in the name of availability and making the statistics look good has ruined the prospects for next generation access in the UK. We need a robust mechanism for download of copyright content to reduce usage due to copyright theft and much clearer advertising on pricing and limitations of services to progress things in any real way. It's especially relevant as we are high consumers of streaming media here in the UK so on the one hand we need higher quality services but on the other we're not prepared as a country to pay our providers for it.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

Where does giving people fibre fit into the present social priorities given that to most the only real use for 100Mbps remains downloading and uploading copyright content?[COLOR="Silver"]

We have no real use for it at the moment. Who knows what the future holds?

I suspect 100 years ago, people were probably saying the same about the Telephone. After all, there was no pressing need for it in society bearing in mind we had a perfectly good postal system. Yet today, hardly anyone in the country doesn't have at least one phone.

The problem with relying on companies to finance any large scale investments in networking like this is that companies have to make profits, and relatively few have the resources or patience to put up with large losses for a few years until the network starts to make a profit.

The other problem is that these companies will only install the network where they think they can make most profits. This is going to leave large chunks of the country with no coverage because they are going to be expensive to network, and have relatively low interest.

And actually one good reason for the government to invest in things like this is that large companies may be more willing to invest in facilities here if they know that we have a good telecoms infrastructure.

[Ignitionnet]

All true but again it's way down the list of priorities. I would, frankly, find the idea of my taxes going towards Fibre To The Farm quite offensive when our City is being left to commercial markets for the foreseeable future.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Ignitionnet

All true but again it's way down the list of priorities. I would, frankly, find the idea of my taxes going towards Fibre To The Farm quite offensive when our City is being left to commercial markets for the foreseeable future.

Agreed.

[weesteev]

Originally Posted by Stuart

Agreed.

Seconded, good posts guys.

[sinkat]

As a contractor working on this project for the last 8 months, things do not look good, as the workforce are not even getting paid from the middle management companies, who are in turn not getting paid from fibrecity, so they say.
If they currently continue in this way, the people who actually put this in the ground and do physical aspect of this project will look elsewhere for work, which in turn will set the whole project back yet again if and when it starts up.
So my advice to anyone who might be looking for work be very careful as you will/might not get paid