Why isn't cable available nationwide?

[fizzbuzz]

I live in a large city. Some parts of it have cable and some don't. I live in a part that doesn't have it, despite being very densely populated and where all hospitals and universities are located.

Cannot get telewest, or virgin because no cable, and can only get sky satellite tv. Can't even get faster breadband as it comes down the phone line.

Is there any national strategy on this, or are parts of the country never going to get into the digital age properly?

Does anyone know?

[fizzbuzz]

broadband of course.........

[lailasmum]

I think that not everywhere has the actual cables laid. I think they tend to do them in tandem with other road works and london is to have lots of work done on the water pipes so it maybe that the companies will take advantage of that and lay it at the same time.
I live in the country and doubt it will ever get here.

[fizzbuzz]

But surely that means some areas of the country have better access to digital stuff than others.

As technology improves, this must mean that some people will not be able to access more advanced stuff, and the gap will grow and grow.

Is there no national strategy?

[lailasmum]

yep thats right, some people have no access to broadband at all even down phone lines and it doean't seem to be changing.

[lailasmum]

Never heard of a national strategy and I think that they would probably replace all the phone lines before putting in cable for tv as such.

[foxinsocks]

it's not a nationalised industry - it's driven by profit motive and only certain companies still do the physical laying down of cables/networks (BT, Cable and Wireless). So if there's nothing in it for them (or for whoever they on sell the capacity to), they won't do it!

[foxinsocks]

there are probably planning issues too (used to work in this area but haven't done so for years!)

[foxinsocks]

(there are other companies who lay cable other than the two I've pointed out - but it is a big initial outlay)

there are other methods of delivering broadband to you that don't involve laying cable or using cable. It may be that you'll get one of those.

[fizzbuzz]

We can get broadband. but not as fast as if we had cable. But would like entire broadband/phone/tv package from Virgin, and not able to have it due to no cable. Am sure where I live would be really profitable for companies, it's full of students for a start

[nannynick]

There used to be small cable companies... CableTel in my region (Surrey). They were then takenover/merged never remember which, with NTL, which has now become Virgin Media.

Where I live, my village is not cabled. However a neighbouring area is, and in the main road that passes close to my house, there is a main cable trunk, going from Frimley to Woking.
Alas, no way of connecting myself to that cable, doubt Virgin Media have any plans to lay more cable, especially in villages.

I hope that BT may at some point upgrade our village copper wire, to fibre. Wishful thinking I expect, but would be nice, as my home is over 3.5km by copper wire from the exchange, so I don't get great broadband speed.

[fizzbuzz]

But surely with all that UK online stuff, cabling the entire country should be a government thing, not left to the likes of Virgin or whatever?

[nooka]

No, I don't think the government has pledged to cable the entire country. It would be hugely expensive, thinking of all the remote places that people live (think about the Highlands and Islands!). There are alternative ways to access digital services, with Freeview and Sky, and a number of alternatives to cable for broadband too. Laying down cable is so expensive that all the cable companies have gone bust (Virgin is in big trouble too).

[fizzbuzz]

I didn't know they had gone bust tbh. Now I know why we don't have it. Still p*** me off though.

Hate sky and Murdoch, and would have liked chance to try something else. Also streaming is only properly available with high speed braodband. ......Not that I use it of course, but with 3 teenage boys in house.......