Telewest

Telewest (formerly Telewest Broadband and Telewest Communications) is a trading name of , 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

1984
The Telewest story begins in Croydon operating under the name of Croydon Cable.

1988
Croydon Cable is bought out by United Cable of Denver, US. Franchises in Edinburgh, Avon and South East added.

1989
United Cable merges with United Artists Cable International.

1991
United Artists merges with their largest shareholder TCI (now Liberty Media), the largest cable operator in the US. A joint venture between TCI and US West is announced.

1992
Joint venture company is renamed Telewest Communications.

1994
Telewest successfully completes a stock market flotation in the UK. As part of the floatation, United Artists (Programming) is spun out and bought by its management.

1995
Telewest merged with SBC Communications, adding franchises in the Midlands and North West totalling 1.3 million homes.

1998
Telewest Communications announces a merger with General Cable, and acquires an outstanding interest in Birmingham Cable, adding a further 1.7 million franchise homes in Yorkshire, West London and Birmingham.

1999
Telewest purchases the remaining 50% stake that it does not own in Cable London from NTL, adding 0.4 million franchise homes in North London

2000
In April, Telewest purchases Flextech's entire share capital. In November, Telewest extends its cable network with the acquisition of Eurobell taking the total number of homes passed to 4.9 million.

2002
Telewest Communications plc enters financial restructuring discussions with its stakeholders.

2004
In July, Telewest emerges from its financial restructuring as Telewest Global Inc. Shares begin trading on Nasdaq National Market.

2005
In October, Telewest announces a merger with NTL, which will create the UK's second largest communications company and leading triple play service provider. Telewest Business delivers a comprehensive range of solutions, across the UK, including broadband and internet services, networking solutions, voice and IP and multimedia services.

2006
The NTL and Telewest merger was completed in March, creating ntl:Telewest Business and leaving the residential section of the company unchanged.

July 2006
NTL: Telewest completed their acquisition of Virgin Mobile. An announcement to customers on the NTL and Telewest websites reported that services are set to be rebranded under the Virgin name in early 2007.

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. In January 2006 they started to broadcast HD documentaries such as "The Blue Planet", "Planet Earth", and "Pride" through their Teleport service, and have plans to brodcast movies in HD. Telewest have an agreement with both ITV and the BBC and will be the only provider in the UK to offer all the World Cup matches in HD.
*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 Cable Internet), offers speeds of 2 Mbit/s, 4 Mbit/s and 10 Mbit/s. 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.

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 Anywhere200 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 stratgies, 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

See also

*NTL
*Flextech

External links

*Telewest home page
*blueyonder home page
*ntl incorporated Share price
*Cable Forum
*WebFixes - Technical Support for the Blueyonder Community
*TelewestInfo - An Unofficial Telewest Information Site
*ntl Telewest Merger information Blog
*DS:Cable
*The blueyonder Users Group