Mea Resignations

[Alias]

Does the gov. still get 10% (or whatever) of MTs pretax profits under the license?

[Snaipyr]

Just how much revenue could the MEA get/have got from broadband via the mains?

 

MT & Domicillium probably have a lot less than 20,000 broadband subscribers between them. At around 30 quid a month, which is probably the most normal internet users would pay, they'd need the population of at least a major city to see a long-term return on their investment.

 

Madness.

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I was told there were some major-league international companies signing up with the MEA for data recovery and warehousing - with a projected income of £60 million a year.

[kellyiom]

an interesting slant on the yarn; here's another; the grauniad story clearly states that Barclays Private Clients International are the lenders...would it not be more usual that this type of loan would sit on the UK plc's balance sheet. Interesting given their recent high-profile headquartering on the Island?

[germann]

High-speed internet is no longer the preserve of rich countries, and the difference between a 5mb/s and a 100mb/s connection is no longer a priority for international companies. Multi-nationals are more interested in keeping overheads to a minimum. That includes bills for the leccy.

 

No point in having mega-tetrabit broadband if you're the one funding the cable and Barclays' Ocean Finance-rate repayments.

[ButterflyMaiden]

High-speed internet is no longer the preserve of rich countries, and the difference between a 5mb/s and a 100mb/s connection is no longer a priority for international companies.  Multi-nationals are more interested in keeping overheads to a minimum. That includes bills for the leccy.

 

No point in having mega-tetrabit broadband if you're the one funding the cable and Barclays' Ocean Finance-rate repayments.

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All of this seems to be missing the point a little ? There are numerous reference sources which state the primary purpose of the MEA cable. It was commissioned as and is used as an electrical interconnector. It was necessary to install a fibre optic bundle with the cable for control purposes. There are some spare fibres and, as I understand it, MEA wished to take advantage of the spare fibres. This is called sweating the asset.

I do not know what contribution, if any, paying for the inter connector has made to MEA debts. However, it does seem to have been commissioned several years before MEA extended its credit arrangements. Perhaps someone could confirm this is the case ? It also seems to have been commissioned before Mr Proffitt was Chief Executive of MEA.

I dont really see how MEA ambitions, imagined or otherwise, to be a broadband provider, could have any impact on the level of debt associated with the power station project. Maybe I am missing the point ... but isnt the debt situation the reason the MEA Board resigned ?

[germann]

So the cable was for leccy?

 

So what's the point in spending millions on power stations in Douglas & Peel?

 

COUGH. Kickbacks for the boys?

 

240v to every home/business on an island of 70,000 is not rocket science.

[ButterflyMaiden]

So the cable was for leccy?

 

Precisely so !

 

 

So what's the point in spending millions on power stations in Douglas & Peel?

 

Isnt that what the PKF report is addressing ?

 

COUGH. Kickbacks for the boys?

I dont really think it is appropriate to make defamatory allegations even if they lack precision.

 

240v to every home/business on an island of 70,000 is not rocket science.

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No it isnt but it does require hard won qualifications in electrical and mechanical engineering disciplines and it also requires lots of capital investment.

It is a moot point, on the Island, as to whether too much money has been spent and if so whether the MEA credit arrangements were appropriate.

Sorry, but none of this has anything to do with MEA acting as a provider of bandwidth.

[Rog]

What doesn’t quite make sense to me is that the majority of the cost of installing a cable is not the cable, it’s the labour, renting the cable barge, and so forth. In any case even armoured fibre cable is not all that expensive, in fact quite a bit cheaper than copper. and a compound cable comprising of a copper / fibre bundle is not significantly more expensive than a standard copper cable. In fact it’s not at all unusual now to have overhead power spans with an embedded fibre. The company for whom I used to work invented the technology and as far as I know it is now licensed to a number of manufacturers.

 

They were also the inventers of the technology to transmit high speed data over the mains but ---

 

But although it did work (and worked very well up to a point) when it came to deploying the technology big-time things went poon tang (see if THAT gets past the swear filter!) in other tan dense population centres.

 

The basic problem is the need to bridge the low pass filter characteristics of power transformers in the power distribution system. If a large community took power from the same transformer then not a big deal, the economics of bridging the txfmr made sense but in a rural or semi rural setting ---. Each time there was a transformer it stopped high speed data dead in its tracks so wherever there was one there the data stopped.

 

There had to be a high pass filter of some form at every point a transformer or even just a loading coil inserted to correct the power factor had been inserted and these things cost money. Lots.

 

See http://www.cybertelecom.org/broadband/Power.htm

 

There’s something going on here not quite kosher beyond the loans and the justification It is entirely possible that the whole ‘internet over the mains’ was one massive cock-up by someone who simply didn’t understand what they were doing and who sold the idea to others who hadn’t got a clue either but had access to the purse strings. Now, about Downie---.

[joeyconcrete]

My understanding was that there were significant amounts of fiber, possibly a lot more than what's required for control purposes. The otherside of the argument is it makes great business sense that if you're laying an electricity cable across the Irish Sea you may as well piggy-back a high-capacity fiber along with it - shared costs etc. So in that respect it was forward-thinking by the MEA. There's the issues which they never addressed such as lighting the fiber in Blackpool and distributing it on the Isle of Man. Its a bit of an iffy situation given MT's license, but that was relaxed to allow others like C&W the chance to operate. I can see the situation from MT's perspective, a government-owned company has a shed load of off-island capacity and wants to flog it to businesses for great prices - a nightmare in their eyes. On the otherhand MT have had their rule of the roost and I welcome other competition.

 

You're right in saying that the issue isn't soley about the fiber but I'd imagine it didn't come cheap and it's probably worth masses of cash in terms of annual revenue if put to use. So in one respect its currently a complete waste of money. The DTI/Government would be daft not to utilise it, but at the same time they should be careful it doesn't fall into the sole hands of MT (O2) whereby the great value aspect would fade - likewise it shouldn't have been restricted for sole use by the MEA which in essence got the cable from tax payers money.

[Rog]

You're right in saying that the issue isn't soley about the fiber but I'd imagine it didn't come cheap and it's probably worth masses of cash in terms of annual revenue if put to use. So in one respect its currently a complete waste of money. The DTI/Government would be daft not to utilise it, but at the same time they should be careful it doesn't fall into the sole hands of MT (O2) whereby the great value aspect would fade - likewise it shouldn't have been restricted for sole use by the MEA which in essence got the cable from tax payers money.

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Fibre comes VERY cheap after #1 in the bundle, especially when there is no need to put repeaters in the span.

 

The short hop between the Island and the Mainland could be easily served without optical repeaters and if a high output laser diode was used as the driver.

[FCMR]

Just how much revenue could the MEA get/have got from broadband via the mains?

 

MT & Domicillium probably have a lot less than 20,000 broadband subscribers between them. At around 30 quid a month, which is probably the most normal internet users would pay, they'd need the population of at least a major city to see a long-term return on their investment.

 

Madness.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I was told there were some major-league international companies signing up with the MEA for data recovery and warehousing - with a projected income of £60 million a year.

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maybe this has something to do with the rumour that two links from the MEA cable have already been sold to two local Business men with an invovement of a Major USA aircraft company.

[FCMR]

As the COMIN had just signed up for a franchise with MT for the next 15 years under the then Chief Minister Richard Corkill MHK for a private monopoly of communications and also a further 5 million contract for the local government and central government "intranet" links, the news from the MEA of their tchnology was an embarrassment and had to be thwarted by the clique.

 

At the same time there was allegations that Corkill was letting his holiday cottages at Ballacain to MT staff imported from their parent company U2.

 

 

 

The PKF report is a total whitewash and does not reveal what has actually gone on.

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And they are still staying at Ballacain and have been for some time

[Digga]

My understanding was that there were significant amounts of fiber, possibly a lot more than what's required for control purposes.

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The fibre cable that was laid with the submarine cable had 8 fibres in total the MEA required at least 5 of these for control of the cable. 1 fibre was beyond repair after numerous attempts replacing the main joints (£40,000 a joint) at both ends so i was deemed as scrap which leaves only 2 spares, i worked with BICC and the MCC and know this as fact i spent plenty of time in the jointing room up douglas head.

[joeyconcrete]

Only 2 remaining, whats the capacity of a fiber? 155mbps?

[ButterflyMaiden]

There’s something going on here not quite kosher beyond the loans and the justification It is entirely possible that the whole ‘internet over the mains’ was one massive cock-up by someone who simply didn’t understand what they were doing and who sold the idea to others who hadn’t got a clue either but had access to the purse strings.  Now, about Downie---.

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Hey guys ! Take a reality check here. None of this has anything at all to do with MEA debts. ( I sometimes think Rog wilfully misunderstands things to get others to bite )

It should be all academic next week anyhow as (according to my husband) the audit report will be in the public domain.

Maybe your ideas and concerns about the MeA bandwidth would make a really good new thread ? But it isnt related to MEA resignations or MEA debts.