Telewest: Difference between revisions

ntl: Inc, trading as Telewest
	Telewest Logo
Company type	Subsidiary Of NTL
Industry	Communications
Founded	1984
Headquarters	London
Key people	Peter Wilcock: Managing Director Ntl/Telewest Consumer Sales And Service
Products	Cable Television; Broadband; Telephone ; Mobile from Virgin
Website	www.telewest.co.uk

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Revision as of 23:59, 21 November 2006

Telewest (formerly Telewest Broadband and Telewest Communications) is a trading name of NTL Incorporated, the dominant cable operator in the United Kingdom with more than 90% of the market. The merger of Telewest and NTL's UK businesses was completed on March 3, 2006. NTL trading as Telewest passes approximately 4.2 million homes.

In recent years Telewest has progressed through a lot of financial problems due to the huge debts it incurred as a result of constructing its cable network, and acquiring other cable companies and assets. In 2004 Telewest re-structured itself by swapping its unsecured debt for 98.5% of its shares. Shares were then consolidated and delisted from the London FTSE. Major Telewest shareholders included Huff and Liberty Media (run by cable tycoon John Malone). Since then, the company has emerged from financial restructuring and completed a merger with larger rival NTL. See Company Background below for full details.

Company Background/History

Telewest was founded in Croydon in 1984 under the name of Croydon Cable.

Private equity bid

On August 16 2006, The Times reported that the NTL Incorporated group (comprising of NTL, Telewest and Virgin Mobile) could be the subject of a £10bn takeover bid from a private equity firm consortium- comprising Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Bain, Cinven, Blackstone and Providence Private Equity.

The £10bn figure would include £6bn worth of debt already on the NTL Balance Sheet. The private equity bid is likely to be funded through additional new banking facilities. It is believed that the consortium are willing to pay around $30 per share for the NASDAQ USA-listed holding company.

Any bid would need the backing of Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Entertainment Investment Holdings Limited (part of the Virgin Group Limited), which holds a 10.5% stake in NTL.

A formal takeover bid has, as of 9 November 2006, never materialised.

ITV merger

On Thursday, 9 November 2006, NTL Inc announced that it had approached commercial broadcaster ITV about a proposed merger [1], after a similar announcement by ITV [2].

Residential Services

On its cable network, Telewest provides several residential services including:

Television

The majority of Telewest's television is now digital. However, there are still areas that receive an analogue service (Slough, Windsor and some other areas in West London). Telewest is in the process of converting the remaining analogue areas to digital and it is expected that the analogue service will cease in 2007.

The digital television service offers a number of different products including true video on demand, a PVR, and HDTV.

Teleport: Teleport is the brand name for Telewest's video on demand (VOD) service. The Teleport service launched in 2005. In contrast to Sky Digital which, due to technical limitations, is only able to provide near-VOD services, Teleport is a true VoD system. Users can search through a large library of programmes and watch them when they want to as part of their subscription. This library includes a free 7-day watch again feature for TV programmes produced wholly by the BBC and Flextech. Teleport also offers movies that can be purchased and watched as many times as desired within a twenty four hour period. Teleport also offers HD content that will work in conjunction with the TVDrive PVR.

HDTV Telewest was the first UK broadcaster to offer HDTV. Contrary to popular belief, Telewest's HDTV service launched several months earlier than that of their chief competitor, Sky Digital. Telewests HD service is priced significantly lower than Sky's. Sky charge a £300 setup fee and an additional £10 / month. Telewest charge a £75 setup fee and £10 month. Telewest's fee's however include the TV Drive service, whereas the Sky HD service does not include their Sky+ charges. In January 2006 they started to broadcast HD documentaries such as "The Blue Planet", "Planet Earth", and "Pride" through their Teleport service, and now broadcast some movies in HD. Telewest had an agreement with both ITV and the BBC and claimed to be the only provider in the UK to offer all the World Cup matches in HD. In reality however half of the final group stage matches were not available in HD. Since the world cup there have been no new HD channels added to the lineup. This means that Telewest customers are missing out on Sky One HD, Sky Sports HD, Sky Movies HD, Discovery HD and National Geographic HD. Telewest's HD service is provided exclusively through their TV Drive box.

TV Drive: Is the name of Telewest's Digital Video Recorder (PVR) service. TV Drive product incorporates a 160 gigabyte hard drive as standard, meaning it is able to store around 80 hours of recorded programmes. This is in contrast to BSkyB's Sky+ service which currently offers only 80 gigabytes (40 hours) as standard, with a 160 gigabyte drive available at a significant premium. Similarly, Telewest's product incorporates three tuners while Sky's incorporates only two, meaning that Telewest's service can record two channels at the same time while watching a third.

Internet

Telewest's broadband service, Blueyonder (formerly branded Cable Internet), runs on the cable internet architecture and offers speeds of 2 Mbit/s, 4 Mbit/s and 10 Mbit/s downstream. The prices range from around £14.99 per month to £35 per month. The broadband service is currently 'uncapped', meaning that usage is unlimited and no extra charges are payable related to the amount of data downloaded.

On 21/11/2006 The Register reported that Traffic Management was being trialed in the North West of England. [3]

Blueyonder also provides dial-up internet services on a pay as you go, or fixed monthly fee of £14.99 for unlimited usage.

Telephone

Talk Unlimited (£25.50 Inclusive of Line Rental)
Talk Evenings and Weekends (£16.50 Inclusive of Line Rental)
Talk Weekends (£11.00 Line Rental charge, for all customers)

Providing UK landline calls for upto an hour for a fixed fee monthly inclusive of line rental. Telewest were the first UK landline company to offer 'unlimited' calls to landlines for a fixed monthly fee.

Talk Mobile (£1.50 Additional)

UK mobile calls with 25% reduction from standard rates.

Talk International (£3 Additional)

Similar principle to Talk Mobile, with different reductions to different countries.

Talk Anywhere

200 Minutes (£20.00 Inclusive of Line Rental) 400 Minutes (£27.00 Inclusive of Line Rental) 800 Minutes (£40.00 Inclusive of Line Rental)

Telewest are the first landline company to offer a package of this kind as it includes bundled minutes every month that can be carried over to the next. Including UK Mobiles, Landlines, Businesses with 0845 and 0870 International Mobiles & Landlines. Available nationally, varying in price depending on number of minutes.

Business Services

Telewest also provides extensive business telephony and data network services that provide a significant portion of its revenue streams, and carrier services to other telcos.

See ntl:Telewest business.

Subsidiaries

The company owns Flextech, a content provider with a number of wholly owned channels (including Bravo and LIVINGtv). Flextech also has a 50% share in UKTV with BBC Worldwide.

Marketing

Over the years, Telewest has had a different number of strategies, with a solid corporate identity coming out in late 2005, to co-incide with the 3 for £30 offer. The company now has a mascot "Ellie West" to promote its services.
Ellie West

References

External links

@@ Line 49: / Line 49: @@
 Telewest's [[broadband internet|broadband service]], Blueyonder (formerly branded Cable Internet), runs on the [[cable internet]] architecture and offers speeds of 2&nbsp;[[Mbit/s]], 4&nbsp;Mbit/s and 10&nbsp;Mbit/s downstream.  The prices range from around £14.99 per month to £35 per month. The broadband service is currently 'uncapped', meaning that usage is unlimited and no extra charges are payable related to the amount of data downloaded.
+On 21/11/2006 [[w:The_register|The Register]] reported that [[w:Traffic Management|Traffic Management]] was being trialed in the North West of England. [http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/21/blueyonder_gets_throttled/]
-It was announced on 21/11/2006 that "Traffic Management" was being
-trialed in the north west of England. This is certain to be pushed to
-the entire network in due course. The 10MB service users have reported
-that their download speeds have been cut to 4.5MB each eveniong after
-a few minutes continual use. Telewest does not therefore supply an
-"uncapped" service any longer.
-Their advertising of being "truly unlimited" is yet to be changed.
-http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/21/blueyonder_gets_throttled/
-http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=483477&page=1&pp=25
-Although, Sky have recently started to offer broadband packages ranging from free to £10.00pcm, these packages are only available to those who subscribe to Sky's television packages, the cheapest of which is £15pcm.  In comparison, to get Telewest broadband you do not need to subscribe to a television package.
 Blueyonder also provides dial-up internet services on a pay as you go, or fixed monthly fee of £14.99 for unlimited usage.