scte member focus
Member FOCUS MATHEW TULLY Director of Fixed Infrastructure, Engineering and Delivery, Virgin Media O2
What got you interested in a career in this industry and how did you get started? It started with my dad, Howard. He worked for Rediffusion, then British Cable Telecomm, Metro Cable and Cabletel in the 1980s and1990s. He would take me out as an 8-year-old boy to locations where they were building satellite receiving stations deep in the Welsh Valleys high up in the hills. A few years later I came and worked at the Cabletel office in Cardiff as a junior network planner and then returned every semester break during University. I am still here all these years later! How would you best describe what you do, and what do you enjoy best? I have been upgrading Virgin Media O2’s networks for the majority of my career. In the early 2000s it was upgrading to provide broadband services into the cable network, followed by 1GHz upgrades to enable DOCSIS 3.1 in the 2010s. Now in the current decade it is all about upgrading the network with full fibre to the premise. As much as I love the building of networks and seeing that transition, the bit I enjoy the most is building the teams who do it. That camaraderie and fun is what really brings the enjoyment to the role, and building successful teams is definitely what gets me out of bed every day.
What memories really stand out for you over the years you’ve been involved in this industry? The amount of change in the company and the technology. I remember bankruptcy back in 2001 which saw so many people leave NTL and was sad to see. The merger with Telewest and the rebrand as Virgin Media was such an exciting time, and still one of my favourite periods after so long in the cable industry doldrums. Launching Virgin Media’s first Gigacities in 2019 was a recent highlight and truly showed what our network was capable of. It all goes by so quickly, but seems only like yesterday! The sector has changed a lot in the last 20 years; what for you is the biggest shift? I remember big celebrations for rolling out 10Mb per second capabilities and now we have 1Gb nationally. The vast changes in speed of broadband have been exceptional. When I started back in the 1990s, it was purely a cable TV offering, so it has changed dramatically.
At the SCTE we take great pride in our individual members, who have made such a contribution to the growth and development of our industry. This section of Broadband Journal shines an overdue light on you wonderful people in every issue going forward, as well as regularly online.
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Volume 46 No.3 September 2024
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