Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news...HY8&refer=home

Admin Edit (Stuart): Quoted text changed to a link

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

As Buddy Holly once said "That'll be the day!"... my friend ;)

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

You have to remember what Virgan started with when they got the trains franchise - a underinvested old network with bad rollingstock, they had to invest billions anbd wait a while before the service was decent - afik they were not going to use the virgin brand to start with as everything was in such poor shape. Richard Branson decided to use the Virgin brand and build up a reprutation from less than scratch and knew there would be a huge dip in people trusting the brand based on Virgin Trains performance. They have slowly inporved things over time (this comes from a decent user of Virgin trains on the East cost main line).
They have the money and Richard looks like he is prepared to inprove things over time. This can only be good for customers, if he is willing to put billions into the infrastructure and customer service. But as will everything time will tell.

---------- Post added at 19:17 ---------- Previous post was at 19:15 ----------

Just read this - there goes all my thoughts of investment! :)

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

Well hopefully if this happens, we should now start seeing NTL move forward instead of treading water as it has for the past few years.

And hopefully start to be treated better as associates as well.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

it has moved forward in some ways... speed increases, stand alone cable modems introduced. shame the TV service hasn't got a PVR version and a unbundled phone line version.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

Actually, I understand that. However, the problems I have had with virgin trains have not been caused by engineering work, or past underinvestment in the service. Generally they have been caused by virgin devoting over half the train to first class, then massively overbooking the second class (in fact, the last journey I had on a pendolino, this is exactly what happened and there wasn't even enough room to stand).

Oh, and Virgin is more heavily subsidised than BR was.

However, this is getting a little off topic.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

I think it's very on topic actually as past performance on how he runs a business is an indication of what is in store for NTL. I would have used the phrase 'track record' in there somewhere but I'm avoiding puns today.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

Maybe we will see 10mb speed trains on broad rails. And over 100 tv channels on mobile of course running with 10mb broaband.

Of course customers services wont know anything about it or what time the trains will arrive. lol

Personaly im please branson is involved with virgin as it could well bring a wider range of services hopefully at competitive prices.
I wonder if he will be really involved at the level of simon duffy or whether hes just a shareholder albeith the biggest single shareholder.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

I'll go for that, after 7 years working for Telewest and having to pay subscription to NTL and Virgin Mobile I'm about due for some kind of concession.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

Remember Virgin Power, a bit like Virgin Internet, build the customer base up from nothing overnight using the Branson Hype, then sell the customer base off to another company without saying anything to the customers.
Weâ₠¬ÃƒÂ¢Ã¢â‚¬Å¾Ã‚¢ll be lucky not to wake up and find we have been moved to BT.

Trotters Independent Trading comes to mind.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

The bigger company is NTL/Telewest, the Smaller Virgin, so a usual takeover results in the bigger aquiring the smaller, in this scenareo the outcome is that NTL is tecnically aquired by Virgin making Virgin the owner, the smaller company aquiring the bigger.
However in real terms the shareholders of NTL/TW are adequately compensated in Virgin shares.
Note this won't be part of the private 100% owned empire, more like Virgin Atlantic which is 49% owned by Singapore Airlines.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

ohh look its christmas time ....bring out the branson :D

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

Verminworld? Virgin-on-the-ridiculous?

I was astounded to see the BBC's coverage of this - it felt like I was having a press release read to me. Virgin Mobile (which is all we're talking about) is tiny in mobile terms (£800m isn't really a lot, and is much smaller than ntl). Virgin Net already got absorbed by ntl just over a year ago, and presumably Branson is doing what he usually does - extracting money from one bit of his empire to prop up another or start something new. That's where his true genius lies. The idea that a future media giant controlled by Branson (with a 14% stake) will suddenly start beating Sky into a pulp is, I think, wide of the mark. For one thing, this doesn't make the Telewest merger any less difficult to achieve, and that's much more important.

[veers off topic onto favourite hobby horse (or iron horse?)]

I suggest some background reading on the subject.
1) They didn't get the network, Railtrack did. Franchises don't actually contain very much substantively
2) We're each subsidising the Virgin franchises to the tune of some £12 per passenger from the public purse, as Stuart C suggested. Under the original plans they should have been paying *back* money, as GNER do.
3) They're effectively run for a fixed management fee from the state now, having more or less gone bust due to unworkable business plans
4) VT is a consortium anyway, like a lot of things that say 'Virgin' on the front, in this case with the bus company Stagecoach, which has 49%
5) Virgin don't even own the trains, either, Angel Trains* do.
6) They were called Virgin Trains from day one

So the much vaunted Branson business acumen consists of planning something unrealistic, then persuading the state to cough up millions when his over-ambitious private enterprise effort goes bust. Great stuff.

Whatever you think about Richard Branson, taking his rail efforts as a yardstick of his business acumen isn't a particularly compelling case

[still veering]

[The 'underinvestment' line is Government spin to stop us spotting the flaws in the rail system, incidentally (such as private enterprise contriving to run the thing *less* efficiently than BR). The average age of British trains is the same as it was 10 years ago but the average age of signalling is six years more, despite the whole thing costing six times as much in subsidy.]

* aka Royal Bank of Scotland. Banks know a good moneyspinner when they see one.

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

I really don't see how they can say that this move will give NTL a good chance to take on Sky. Sky do not offer Mobile services and I doubt that many customers give two hoots if NTL want to give them a mobile deal, I certainly don't.

What will give them a good run against sky, is a decent PVR deal, and a good VoD/HD service. These are the two services which will make people spend money, not mobile phones. IMO.

The problem with the mobile phone market in this country is cross network charging and with most people on O2 or Orange or Vodaphone, who wants to be on T-mobile ?

Re: Virgin mobile merging with NTL to take on SKY
 

http://www.cableforum.co.uk/article/...-virgin-mobile

Well that explains why NTL and Telewest had not announced what the combined company was going to be called. These merger deals are typically many months in the making so they would have definately have known about it when they announced that NTL and Telewest were merging.

I think that calling the combined company Virgin is a good step to take as it neither the NTL or Telewest brands have UK-wide recognition and for those or any other new brand they would have had o launch a huge UK-wide publicity campain to promote the new brand. But with Virgin they will not need to do that - it is already an internationally recognised brand!