Manx Telecom broadband
Was chatting about broadband to a neighbour of my Mam and Dad in the pub near their house this weekend. He has to ration the use of the internet between his kids who all want it for different applications at the same time – Xbox Live, iPlayer etc. Unfortunately Manx Telecom still operates ADSL2+ and his connection isn’t fast enough to run the whole family’s internet needs simultaneously.
This unfortunately is what a monopoly does for you. We are lucky in the UK that we have Virgin. Virgin is what will have driven BT to invest in FTTX. Nothing else. What other motivator would it have had. In a monopolistic situation if I were the incumbent I’d be squeezing my assets for all their worth. Manx Telecom is a private company and I guess is doing just that.
Footnote 7//7/2014 Last time I was home in Peel in the Isle of Man I had a very mixed experience with mam and dad’s wifi. I have to say that the tech support lady was top notch. She patiently waited whilst I went through the motions of testing the router, upgrading to the most recent firmware (ours was yonks out of date) etc.
In the end we concluded that mam and dad needed a new router. Next time I’m over I’ll pop into the Manx Telecom shop and pick one up. Timico did offer to send one but mam and dad are knocking on a bit. the last thing they need is to find themselves trying to call Manx Telecom for support only to find that they have an unsupported router.
Look out for some holiday posts from the Isle of Man this August. It’s my favourite place to go on holiday. Innit:)
Finally on a totally different note Manx Telecom were used as a test bed for 3G by O2 way back in the day.
6 replies on “Connectivity conversation in the Isle of Man”
So what drove monopoly Jersey Telecom to roll out fibre? BT wanted to some years ago and the government would not let them because of the effect on the cable TV companies who became Virgin.
Research finds: Manx Telecom has made a significant investment to provide Ultima to all 12 telephone exchanges and 26 Fibre to the Cabinet nodes around the Island.
Certainly a factor as a lot of the *early* FTTC deployments were to Virgin cabled areas, but many areas in the vast cable deserts have also had FTTC investment from BT which doesn’t quite fit the suggested model.
Competition from LLU is perhaps a driving factor outside Virgin’s footprint for BT Openreach to gain more revenue per broadband line or for BT Retail to gain more customers on Infinity.
There is some competition, in the form of http://www.wimanx.com IIt is a while since I spoke to them and I guess they don’t cover the whole island.
Yep, time BT bit the dust and Openreach became a mutual.
Sure CW offer a complete alternative to Manx telecom. Also a majority of the UK can’t get cable or Virgin Media, it is exactly the same situation across much of Europe not just isle of man.
Wouldn’t too much competition and refusal to share the pre dominant network lines harm the cash pot for future investment?
The purpose of privatising BT and Manx Telecom was so the government didn’t have to subsidise it themselves, following too much competition and a narrowing profit margin due to dwindling landline use, it would leave a sour taste in peoples mouths if such companies where to receive tax payers money as well.
On isle of man, there just enough people to have a wide range of alternatives, there have been a few other alternatives but have failed, not enough customers would mean not meeting they invested on set up and running costs and would be a loss which is why companies are put off.
Sky has many TV customers on the island, but do not offer fixed line services as it would not make commercial sense to do so and would actually lose them money.
Cable and Wireless communications, not the vodafone one, operates Sure on the island and is currently being offloaded to another owner. That is evident that there is no room for them.
Manx Telecom recently appointed a new CTO, who also wears the dual hat of “Customer Service Director” – the observation of Customer Service being wedded with the tech side is interesting in itself.
Has previous in FTTx rollouts and LLU, and is replacing a near-50 year Manx Telecom veteran in the position. Be interesting to see if this appointment shakes things up on the IoM.