Richard Branson does not own Virgin Media.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by Gary L

A year later and you decide to add an option?

---------- Post added at 21:31 ---------- Previous post was at 21:28 ----------



Some people say that Richard's got a strong right arm.

He has to change arms at 99. LOL.

Originally Posted by Gary L

A year later and you decide to add an option?

It was like an itch. Sometimes you just have to scratch ...

Some people say that Richard's got a strong right arm.

I understand asymmetrical muscle development can be a problem for some people.

[bonzoe]

What a pointless thread, and someone resurrects it!! Still pointless, imo

[m419]

Well back to the point, Why on earth did NTL acquire Telewest and Virgin Mobile, it should have been the other way round, Telewest was much better under its own brand name and ownership.

As soon as NTL took over the whole lot, in came the indian call centres,job losses,less channels and annoying packages oh and slow development of products.

To be honest NTL,Cable and Wireless and especially Videotron are the worst people to deal with.

Cable and wireless have bounced in and out of the residential sector so many times and always seem to cause some kind of issue whether its poor customer relations,poor billing and pricing or just in general crap service.

What gets me is, I heard that NTL Telewest are paying Virgin Enterprises £25 Million per year on top, surely that money could go to upgrading Analogue only areas such as Westminster?

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by m419

Well back to the point, Why on earth did NTL acquire Telewest and Virgin Mobile, it should have been the other way round,

Well I might aswell indulge as I'm on my lunch break. From memory.

NTL acquired Telewest, however on paper on the wheeler dealer side of things, I'm pretty sure the deal shows that Telewest acquired NTL and operationally it more of amerger than any one company taking over. In many areas of the business Telewest working practices and procedures were adopted, as were NTL ones in Telewest areas. Many top jobs went to Telewest management.

So to say that NTL "took over" Telewest in not accurate.

It was then the joint NTL:Telewest company that acquired Virgin Mobile and then we rebranded to Virgin Media many months later. Only after the company had met several pre-conditions laid down by Branson would he lease the brand.

Virgin Media, is very much a Virgin Company, it is the largest Virgin branded company by some way. It may not be wholly owned by Branson (few of Virgin companies are) but he is still a major shareholder who has great influence.

Virgin values and behaviours have been rammed down the employees ever since the re-brand.

Telewest was much better under its own brand name and ownership.

Purely your opinion and of no value in the discussion, for every person who thought it was better as TW you'l find someone who thinks it was better as NTL.

As soon as NTL took over the whole lot, in came the indian call centres,job losses,

Actually before the merger TW had gone through a major reduction in workforce. Post merger there was a lot of redundancies on the NTL side. Working practices of TW were adopted as they had already been rationalised and were deemed by the new management as to have been successful in their reductions.

Cable and wireless have bounced in and out of the residential sector so many times and always seem to cause some kind of issue whether its poor customer relations,poor billing and pricing or just in general crap service.

Apart from when they had their own cable franchises, that ntl bought, and their Bulldog Broadband. I'm not aware of any forays into the residential sector? can you expand.

What gets me is, I heard that NTL Telewest are paying Virgin Enterprises £25 Million per year on top, surely that money could go to upgrading Analogue only areas such as Westminster?

Westminster is actually a very small franchise area. From a business point of view £25M to acquire one of the worlds leading brands is money well spent.

Like I say, there was no need to respond to this as it's been said before, but what the hell.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Purely your opinion and of no value in the discussion, for every person who thought it was better as TW you'l find someone who thinks it was better as NTL.

The thing is, a *lot* of people liked Telewest. As with NTL, actually. Telewest wasn't perfect (in fact I've heard some horror stories, such as Telewest not upgrading whole areas). Neither company was perfect. The only reason that more telewest customers didn't come forward with problems is simply that for a long time we didn't state that we covered telewest as well (and the site's name, nthellword, certainly didn't help in that respect), and, while I doubt we'd have turned away a telewest customer asking for help, once the merger started, it took a while for word to get around to telewest customers that we existed.

It's worth noting that then NTL management were looking at a PVR that was capable of MPEG4, something which, several years later. the current management have just started rolling out. The largely Telewest managed VM decided to go for MPEG2 (although I accept they probably had good reason for this).

From a business point of view £25M to acquire one of the worlds leading brands is money well spent.

That's just it... The management went for something they *thought* would improve their image, and generate sales. I don't know if it did, but in our image-conscious world, a good name can increase sales far more than technically advanced services. That £25 million could have upgraded one area, which might have got a few extra customers ,or it could buy the rights to use an internationally recognised name that might bring in £100 million in sales..

[m419]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrxKe...om=PL&index=47

Richard Branson featuring in Mercury Communications ad, his first step in the telecoms business?

[Pierre]

Nope, just an ad.

For Mercury which is now Cable & Wireless, One of Virgins main wholesale competitors.

Funny how times change

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Stuart C

It's worth noting that then NTL management were looking at a PVR that was capable of MPEG4, something which, several years later. the current management have just started rolling out. The largely Telewest managed VM decided to go for MPEG2 (although I accept they probably had good reason for this).

Ex-ntl had more seats on the board than ex-TW. The TV Drive was chosen for cost reasons.

---------- Post added at 17:08 ---------- Previous post was at 17:07 ----------

Originally Posted by m419

Well back to the point, Why on earth did NTL acquire Telewest and Virgin Mobile, it should have been the other way round, Telewest was much better under its own brand name and ownership.

Telewest needed someone to pay for all the network upgrades they had avoided doing for the previous years.

---------- Post added at 17:16 ---------- Previous post was at 17:08 ----------

Originally Posted by Pierre

Well I might aswell indulge as I'm on my lunch break. From memory.

NTL acquired Telewest, however on paper on the wheeler dealer side of things, I'm pretty sure the deal shows that Telewest acquired NTL and operationally it more of amerger than any one company taking over. In many areas of the business Telewest working practices and procedures were adopted, as were NTL ones in Telewest areas. Many top jobs went to Telewest management.

So to say that NTL "took over" Telewest in not accurate.

Quick couple of snippets:

Under the terms of the transaction, approved by the boards of both companies, Telewest shareholders will receive $16.25 in cash and 0.115 shares of ntl stock for each common share of Telewest they own, for a total consideration currently valued at approximately $6 billion or approximately $23.93 per share. On this basis, upon completion Telewest shareholders will own approximately 25 per cent of the enlarged ntl.

The Board of the enlarged company will consist of all the current directors of ntl plus two directors from Telewest.

The seriously big decisions would have been all ntl.

[Jimmy-J]

I already knew he didn't and at the same time, I couldn't give a smeg.

[Pierre]

Originally Posted by Broadbandings

The seriously big decisions would have been all ntl.

Strategic ones on the main "board", i.e. at the "Huff" level - yes.

But from CEO down to MD and Divisional Director Level, at the operational level, the split was far from so ntl heavy. It is this level I am talking about. At this level TW senior management was very well represented.

[Ignitionnet]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Strategic ones on the main "board", i.e. at the "Huff" level - yes.

But from CEO down to MD and Divisional Director Level, at the operational level, the split was far from so ntl heavy. It is this level I am talking about. At this level TW senior management was very well represented.

True that - anyone noting the change in capacity planning on the DOCSIS network would have seen it

[m419]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Nope, just an ad.

For Mercury which is now Cable & Wireless, One of Virgins main wholesale competitors.

Funny how times change

Mercury's 131 and 132 service was joined with the merger of Nynex,Videotron,BellCable Media and Cable and Wireless and then when the sale of the residential arm including Cable franchises which also included businesses using the cable franchises was sold to NTL, the residential 131/132 service also went across to NTL.

NTL kept it for a short while and then sold it off to Npower for £7 Million, shortly after, Tiscali acquired Npower's telephone base and was called Tiscali Smart Talk, Tiscali is now owned by TalkTalk, So the amount of hands that customer base has gone through since the late 80's is incredible!

Between 1986 and 2009, Mercury's operations:

Mercury Residential: Acquired by NTL in 2000
Mercury Paging: Demerged in 1997 (Now PageOne)
Mercury One2One: Rebranded 1997 Acquired by Deutsche Telekom 1999
Mercury Payphones:Sites Acquired by IPM/Interphone/Infolines 1995/2000

Virgin Media and Cable and Wireless to this date maybe slight competitors but they still do work together, in terms of sharing LLU network. Cable and Wireless still provide Operator Assistance,International Operator Assistance and Emergency Services as well non-Emergencies via 101 to Virgin Media lines and T-Mobile/Virgin Mobile phones. Probably a long term contract.

And who's to say Cable and Wireless will never take over Virgin Media again, it would make sense in terms of cost reduction.

[Sephiroth]

This whole thread, my contribution included, is a load of iseless b*llox!