26-11-2016, 12:44 PM
In Limerick they went from a few cable segments for whole city, no problem for TV, terrible for Broadband, to several segments per street after UPC took over Chorus & NTL (They since took over UK Virgin and rent the name from Branson, and inexplicably apply it here after rebranding to UPC first!).
Thus if you have 1000 streets, there is 2,000 to 4,000 times more capacity.
Also Coax is higher QAM than twisted pair and and more channel bandwidth, so even if only 1Gbps per coax is available (10Gbps is possible), shared between the users it's very much better than the dedicated Cat3 twisted pair from a Fibre fed BT (or Eir here) cabinet.
One Fibre Cabinet of BT has more capacity than entire European Satellite Internet, and 1000x more than a Mobile sector. The UPC/Liberty Global (branded Virgin) can be much higher capacity per cabinet and user. It's likely Liberty/UPC is improving the areas with too many users per coax by adding fibre fed cabinets.
About 92% of viewing time on Irish and UK Pay TV packages is actually "free" TV"! While some people really want Sky Sports, it's typically under 1.5% viewing (all Sports channels). The main Sky channel is also less than 1.5% viewing time!
Subscription TV and "bundled" offers are really bad value if you only really want broadband. I have once off install 10 years ago of a four way satellite reception and a "multiswitch" Satellite distribution that cost less than one year of Sky or UPC pay TV. Loads of legal FTA TV & Radio (there are three old generic boxes with no HD dedicated to Radio and the cheap < £5 FM legal CE transmitters). My PAYG phone is less than £5 a month. I pay only for non-local calls on my ISP powered VOIP. No line rental.
Thus if you have 1000 streets, there is 2,000 to 4,000 times more capacity.
Also Coax is higher QAM than twisted pair and and more channel bandwidth, so even if only 1Gbps per coax is available (10Gbps is possible), shared between the users it's very much better than the dedicated Cat3 twisted pair from a Fibre fed BT (or Eir here) cabinet.
One Fibre Cabinet of BT has more capacity than entire European Satellite Internet, and 1000x more than a Mobile sector. The UPC/Liberty Global (branded Virgin) can be much higher capacity per cabinet and user. It's likely Liberty/UPC is improving the areas with too many users per coax by adding fibre fed cabinets.
About 92% of viewing time on Irish and UK Pay TV packages is actually "free" TV"! While some people really want Sky Sports, it's typically under 1.5% viewing (all Sports channels). The main Sky channel is also less than 1.5% viewing time!
Subscription TV and "bundled" offers are really bad value if you only really want broadband. I have once off install 10 years ago of a four way satellite reception and a "multiswitch" Satellite distribution that cost less than one year of Sky or UPC pay TV. Loads of legal FTA TV & Radio (there are three old generic boxes with no HD dedicated to Radio and the cheap < £5 FM legal CE transmitters). My PAYG phone is less than £5 a month. I pay only for non-local calls on my ISP powered VOIP. No line rental.
