My basic take on it at the time and since was, if people want digital then charge them for it. DO NOT CHARGE the analogue customers (100% of base 8 years ago) >100% more in fees for a service the company can’t afford to roll out with its own profits.
8 years later my home is still not NTL (now UPC). But neither is my area digital. UPC seem to sweep through communities in a very uneven way.
Does ComReg know that they are very sporadic in neighbourhood roll out? What is their record of rolling out fibre to younger more upwardly mobile estates while passing through a post code and leaving older (pre 1970 build) working class estates behind in a deliberate digital divide?
Fibre broadband trumps >2mile from exchange copper broadband by a factor of about 20-100 Mbps.
Was granting a commercial organisation these large increases in regulated fees a wise move if they are cherry picking areas based on Age or Class? I think this highlights the fear that a privatised CableLink could and most likely would cherry pick the market.
My area was due for upgrade Jan 2011. This got shelved and now there is no date on offer to upgrade the first soviet of pensionsville on the Northside of Dublin.
Terrestrial analogue TV signal closedown is less than 1 year away (October 24th 2012). What shall become of analogue cable areas? will upgrading be completed by then? why is it so slow? Haven’t all the customers of UPC been funding this for years? Will the minister for communications direct the players involved to not create a digital apartheid in the urban & suburban cities where the phrase ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’ rings a bit untrue as the piper was paid (albeit not with my stake-holding) for a service the piper has yet to provide.