Cable Forum - The Countdown Begins to Virginercation

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Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Good morning NTL Telewest Customers. :)

There are....

FOUR DAYS TO VIRGINERCATION!!! :shocked:

Good report at the Independent (http://news.independent.co.uk/media/article2214748.ece)

Quote:

....the launch party on Thursday at a venue in London's West End will inevitably involve dozens of scantily clad models and a plethora of celebrities (Al Gore and Kill Bill star Uma Thurman are among those expected to be in attendance). Sir Richard will no doubt make a grand entrance by parachute and grab the nearest of the aforementioned models to ensure the newspapers get a good picture for the morning editions.

...James Kydd, managing director of marketing for Virgin Media, says the cable group has left its network problems behind. "If Virgin Media was just about putting a lick of paint on the old NTL," he explains, "then we would have launched the new company last July.

"Since the acquisition [of Virgin Mobile by NTL], everything has changed," he continues. "The billing system has been overhauled, which will enable our customer service representatives to do their jobs properly.

"Historically, the old NTL was all about making acquisitions. Spending on everything else was frozen. We have spent nine months changing that"

Mr Kydd adds that it is the little things, as well as big operational changes, that have been addressed.

"One of the first things we did was to make sure all the call centre staff had chairs that weren't ripped. An awful lot of effort has gone into making sure the basic things have been sorted.

"And we have spent ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£5m on making sure there are enough staff to answer phones. Previously, the view was that it didn't matter if it took 30 minutes for a customer to get through."

As well as the improvements to the call centres, Virgin Media will this week launch a raft of new services, including at least one new channel. A new digital video recorder called V+, compatible with high-definition, will be introduced that will have greater memory than Sky's equivalent Sky+ box.

And there is also the prospect of a new "BBC on demand" channel for Virgin Media. The BBC Trust has given its provisional approval for the roll out of the BBC iPlayer, which will enable consumers to download any programme broadcast in the preceding weeks. Mr Kydd confirms that Virgin Media is holding talks with the corporation to discuss whether the iPlayer technology could be incorporated to create a new channel on cable.

Eh? New Beeb 'On Demand' channel? Sounds kinda exciting....but....we already have Beeb content on Demand via VOD. Not sure what their on about here. :confused:

-----------------------------

And from The Scotsman (http://business.scotsman.com/technology.cfm?id=183562007):

Quote:

...
The group is expected this year to increase its national coverage from the current level of 55% by buying bandwidth from BT's national network. This will allow Virgin Media to offer broadband and TV services in parts of the country where it currently has no customers due to technical constraints.

Longer term, Branson and NTL's management team hope NTL's five million residential customers will ditch mobile phone contracts with the likes of Vodafone and Orange and sign up with Virgin Mobile. At the same time, the plan is for Virgin Mobile's 4.3 million users to subscribe to Virgin Media's cable, phone and broadband products as "quad-play" moves from being a dream to a reality. NTL launched the "quad-play" bundle in September at ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£40 a month, but prices are expected to fall.

Analysts say that behind this week's launch is the belief that the ever-popular Virgin brand will add some much-needed glamour to NTL, which has earned a reputation for poor customer service. Ian Watt, analyst at Enders Analysis, believes the "Branson-effect" will benefit NTL but is unsure that there is substantial demand for "quad-play".

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

http://www.bbc.co.uk/imp/
www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2006/04_april/25/newmedia.shtml

you will be able to watch any content from the beeb from 1937 i think to today, and i think its free :D

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Why not download something THIS BIG?

Has no one explained to Ntl that you can download something THIS BIG on a dial up modem - it'll just take forever.

They really haven't grasped the idea of people wanting things faster and not bigger.

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Quote:

Originally Posted by a good help (Post 34212636)

So were talking about tons more VOD content from the Beeb? Okkkayyyy...
But I still don't understand why this would require a new channel. :confused:

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Personally, I think the papers don't have a clue about the current service and what is already available. The BBC has already been supplying content to the Catch Up TV service as a 'trial' and all the BBC Trust have approved is for this to continue as a full service and perhaps to increase the content. The person writing this article probably doesn't know On Demand already exists on ntl/telewest.

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

What's this new channel the Independent article talks about? Any ideas?

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Quote:

James Kydd, managing director of marketing for Virgin Media, says the cable group has left its network problems behind. "If Virgin Media was just about putting a lick of paint on the old NTL," he explains, "then we would have launched the new company last July.

"Since the acquisition [of Virgin Mobile by NTL], everything has changed," he continues. "The billing system has been overhauled, which will enable our customer service representatives to do their jobs properly.

"Historically, the old NTL was all about making acquisitions. Spending on everything else was frozen. We have spent nine months changing that"

Yes nine months getting rid of the people that maintain the precious network

Quote:

Mr Kydd adds that it is the little things, as well as big operational changes, that have been addressed.

"One of the first things we did was to make sure all the call centre staff had chairs that weren't ripped. An awful lot of effort has gone into making sure the basic things have been sorted.

"And we have spent ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£5m on making sure there are enough staff to answer phones. Previously, the view was that it didn't matter if it took 30 minutes for a customer to get through."

Yes we must make sure the call centre staff are comfortable and that there enough of them to answer the phone. That's great.

However, there wont be any engineer available to fix the fault

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Norris (Post 34212756)

Agreed, heck, a lot of these press reports confuse PVR with VOD and maintain that NTL and Telewest were "rivals" when in fact they worked together on stuff before the merger.

IMO, if there is a new channel, it could be a "What's on BBC On Demand" channel which shows clips and highlights of content. I'd be amazed if its anything more than that (and extra VOD content from the Beeb).

---------- Post added at 15:47 ---------- Previous post was at 15:29 ----------

Report at ThisIsMoney (http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/campaig...in_page_id=515) suggests an end to Indian Call Centres for Virgin and perhaps a bid for FA Cup and Ingerland international footy ! :shocked:

Quote:

Cable company NTL, which rebrands as Virgin Media this week, is considering ending all call centre contracts in India to try to improve a miserable reputation for customer service. It will also simplify its pricing structure to take on rival BSkyB.

NTL acquired Virgin Mobile for ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£962m last year and the new company will be launched on Thursday, boosted by an advertising campaign starring Hollywood star Uma Thurman.

As part of the deal to license the Virgin name from Sir Richard Branson, who owns 14 per cent of NTL, the firm has promised massive improvements to customer service and has spent ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£5m on support operations. But a source close to Branson admitted that Indian call centres were no use for technical queries. 'It definitely does not work for technical support,' he said. 'The issue is under very serious consideration at the moment.'

A new NTL package will include a mix of broadband and digital television costing ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£20 a month. It will offer broadband and phone for ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£20 a month while broadband, digital television and phone will cost ÃƒÆ’Ã¢â‚¬Å¡Ãƒâ€šÃ‚Â£30 a month.

The company is certain to bid for the rights to the FA Cup and England home football internationals, which become available next month. These rights are currently held by the BBC and Sky.

Interesting. I dealt with an Indian Call Centre on Saturday (regarding sending me a modem capable of receiving the 10 Meg broadband which I'm now paying for) - and it was a bloody nightmare. This can only be a good thing IMO if they indeed go ahead with this decision.

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

spotted in southampton
not bad photo considering i was on a moving bus

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Quote:

Originally Posted by bluetide (Post 34212938)

spotted in southampton
not bad photo considering i was on a moving bus

Awesome! :) Thanks for sharing.

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

no problem i secretly got excited when i saw it :erm:

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

THREE DAYS TO GO UNTIL VIRGINERCATION :shocked:

....and my VOD and bloody Broadband are playing up (anyone else having issues with both in Coventry last night and tonight?)

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

I'm in Leicester and my VOD has stopped working. :(

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nikesh (Post 34213878)

I'm in Leicester and my VOD has stopped working. :(

I haven't even got VOD... oh it only gets better:)
to be fair to ntl, it seems they have upgraded capacity in my area for the broadband!:)

Re: The Countdown Begins to Virginercation....

HEXUS reports on the pending launch of VM (http://lifestyle.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=7804)

Quote:

We have no real clues what Virgin Media is going to unveil on Thursday morning but can only hope that it's a whole lot more understandable than the packages that are currently sold by ntl:Telewest. It would also be good to think that the mobile accounts can be bundled in, too (and for more than two phones) - and may be that there are even some significant savings.

Tech Digest (http://techdigest.tv/2007/02/what_virgin_med.html) gives VM advice on what they need to do, including improving customer service:

Quote:

One word on NTL's customer service in the past: Christ. It was every bit as bad as the complaints websites would have you believe. To quote one example close to home (i.e. me), when my telephone line was fecked and my digital set-top box stopped working, the response from customer services was inadequate at best (I had some choicier words at the time). Virgin Media execs are making the right noises about having sorted the problems since the NTL / Virgin merger, but the proof will be in the watching/talking/surfing.