Cable and Wireless Snaps up Thus and Demon

[m419]

Thus Plc (Formerly Scottish Telecom) has been snapped up by Cable and Wireless, in addition, Demon internet for residential and small business customers owned by Thus has also been snapped up by Cable and Wireless.

So Cable and Wireless have opted back into the residential market once again,for a third attempt!

Demon has also improved its product portfolio too! Cheaper products and services as well as a new Mobile Broadband and a new Voip service, theres even a pay as you go voip service.

For more details www.demon.net
www.thus.net

Your Communications was snapped up last year by Thus from United Utilities formerly Norweb.

This makes Cable and Wireless the second largest telecoms firms in Britain.

Cable and Wireless consists of:

Mercury Communications
Energis
Thus
Your Communications/Norweb
Sure Communications (Cable and Wireless Guernsey,Jersey and Isle of man)

So what if they also snapped up Virgin Media? Would that make it as large as BT? And what if they snapped up BT's Cable network in Westminster,Corporation of London and Milton Keynes, Businesses would benefit!

It would be something worth considering though, however Cable and Wireless would need to do the following:

Keep Virgin Brand for residential base
Keep Virgin Brand for Virgin Media TV
Keep Virgin Brand for Virgin Mobile
Allow Virgin Group to keep its 10% stake in the company
Rebrand NTL Telewest business as Cable and Wireless....Again

Then the company could merge Demon into the Virgin Brand for off-net customers. So Virgin Media/Cable and Wireless would be able to offer:

Cable TV

Telephone to residential and business customers on a wider scale

Cable Broadband to its existing Cable and Wireless customers ,something that BT,Verizon,BSkyB and Opal Telecom will never be able to offer!

ADSL Internet for all areas not covered by Virgin Media/Cable and Wireless

Voip for residential and business customers.

Mobile phone services

Furthermore, if Cable and Wireless acquired the BT Cable network that covers Westminster,Corporation of London and Milton keynes, they would be able to do what they want with it, they could upgrade the network and would be able to offer Fibre optic cable broadband to the city! Milton Keynes also has potential is home to Abbey National,Cable and Wireless and a few more companies too.

Its just a thought,but I dont think Virgin Media would be able to survive independently especially because of the recession. And Cable and Wireless seem like the only ones that know what they are doing at the moment.

[popper]

TBO, C&W would be far better served today if they just got a large chunk of Anologue freq in the BIG UKINC SALE.

leased some of the better cable (they know were it is ,they put it in in the first place) in each section of the country for their backhaul and 3rd party AOL style cable deals.

and slap a LOAD of new mobile WiMax base stations (intel are giving some really nice incentives to grow their Wimax initatives everywere, especially india right now so why not the UK?)on the cable to service any new wireless initatives they might make with other 3rd party WiMax based WISPs (wireless ISPs).

to then help grow the new markets for a 3rd way to get fixed/nomadic and mobile UK internet services and streaming multicast video services etc.

its something VM might consider as they still have ties with the C&W BOD AFAIK, and C&W might even find it werthwhile and get some cheap finance deals to finish the UK wide deployment of cable fibre they began way back, and then leased that back to VM in a two way swap of some sort.

more UK cable coverage has to be a good thing for all concerned (except BT OC)its assumed, and the US are starting to talk about such govt backed and supported FTTH plans too so its not so far fetched right now for the UK!.

with the credit crunch and banks getting picky, VM being in trouble putting their credit re-payments back 2 more years so having to pay more,and the govt wanting more fibre in the Uk ,someone somewere will find the cash to do this upgrade IF ITS PUT TO THEM and can give a good return on investment over the next 5/10 years it seems !

[Horizon]

Not really sure what C&W are doing, curious move by them.

C&W made clear about 8 years ago that they weren't interested in residential customers that's why they sold their cable tv and residential phone & isp business to ntl.

Clearly, c&w have changed strategies. I wonder if they might then consider a bid for vm, while the share price is still pretty cheap? I agree with m419, vm could be a target for c&w and this would make the merged company probably the biggest telecoms company in the uk.

[m419]

Cable and Wireless still provide the essential services to Virgin Media and NTL Telewest business lines such as Emergency Services,Non Emergency services via 101,Operator Assistance via 100 and international operator assistance via 155. I also think that provide Virgin Media Directory enquiry services too via 118180,118878 and 118190 as well as 118770 and 118120.

Well basically, they sold the residential cable and phone service to NTL after Telewest refused to sell to Cable and Wireless, Cable and Wireless planned on acquiring Telewest.

They then acquired Bulldog communications in 2004 and it went a bit messed up and then sold that to pipex in 2006 which is now Tiscali. However, Cable and Wireless retained some of the residential customers from Bulldog for some reason.

Demon is quite small I think and they only bought Thus because of its business customer base, but I think they will go back into the small business and residential market again.

Cable and Wireless is currently the UK's 2nd largest telecoms firm, it also has operations in nearly every country around the world! Therefore, if it wanted to it could acquire Virgin Media and SmallWorld Media and actually invest a lot of money into the company, in terms of extending the coverage such as cabling new streets,upgrading everyone to digital,providing IPTV,upgrading the broadband speeds as far as 200mb ect..... If it was managed well, Virgin Media could be market leader before they know it.

However,before buying the company, they could just buy particular assets and liquidate any unwanted assets and debts. The banks would just have to whistle for there money.

Cable and Wireless could finance this, and if it couldn't it could always sell off some of its operations abroad.

Other potential companies that could take over Virgin Media:

Verizon (Already has a UK base after acquiring MCI Worldcom)
Comcast
Tele2 (Offers Cable services in Sweden)
Vodafone Group
United Utilities
Deutsche Telekom/T-Home/T-Mobile

Deutsche Telekom,Comcast and Verizon have previously run Cable services in the UK.

Deutsche Telekom: Owned Eurobell 1996 to 2000 and sold it to fund what it had spent on purchasing One2one. Eurobell was aqcuired by Telewest in 2000.

Comcast: Held 50% stakes in Cable London,Birmingham Cable and a few others until NTL bought them out in 1998.

Verizon: Previously known as BellAtlantic, BellAtlantic owned Bell Cable Media in the UK, BellAtlantic also acquired Nynex in 1997. All of Nynex and Bellcable operations where absorbed into Cable and Wireless in 1997.

So a company with good knowledge about the UK Cable industry would be perfect as they would know how to manage it more effeciently.