UK Broadband Internet Service Provider News

UK broadband Internet service provider news and the latest broadband company press releases. Access the latest new broadband deals and broadband service updates, including broadband news from BT, AOL, Tiscali, Eclipse, Orange, Utility Warehouse, TalkTalk, Virgin & Telewest.

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Virgin Media honesty over past customer service

According to the Telegraph, Virgin Media's head of internal communications, James Weekly, offered some brutally honest perspectives of past customer service to fellow internal communications professionals at the Royal Society of Arts this month.

With particular reference to NTL, Mr Weekly referred to the previously poor customer service and other challenges faced by Virgin Media since a complex merger of NTL and Telewest, under the Virgin brand. His frank references were of a history of "crap service" and "very tired people", along with a "synergy hell", caused by ongoing staff reductions of 6,000.

A spokesman for Virgin Media offered the following comments:

"This shows a brutal honesty about what happened before and the challenges that lie ahead.

"The perception is that a Virgin company generally sails along with no problems at all but becoming a Virgin company isn't easy.

"You can't just stamp Virgin on it and everything suddenly goes well. You are overlaying a very entrepreneurial risqué culture on to what was essentially a utility."

For Virgin Media, these disclosures come at a sensitive time, ahead of their £20m marketing relaunch of NTL as Virgin Media.

Virgin Media

Labels: ntl-broadband, telewest-broadband, virgin-broadband, virgin-media-broadband

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Virgin Media soon to launch

Aligning the services of NTL, Telewest and Virgin.net, Virgin Media will soon launch, bringing their respective TV, broadband, mobile and telephony services under the combined Virgin Media brand. A flavour of the new suite of Virgin Media services is available via a sneak preview PR site - www.knowfirst.co.uk, along with the opportunity to win one of 10 invites to their 'glitzy star-studded' party to celebrate the launch of Virgin Media.

According to this site, it would seem that Virgin Media will launch with a choice of three packages - Medium Virgin TV (incl. 2Mb broadband), Large Virgin TV (incl. 4Mb broadband) and XLarge Virgin TV (incl. 10Mb broadband), each with progssively more TV channels (129 TV channels with XLarge) and an inclusive phone line bundled in with the price. Exclusive content worth £35 per month and he peace of mind of Internet security (PC Guard) is to be included with the Large Virgin and XLarge Virgin packages. It is not clear from KnowFirst.co.uk exactly how the telephone element of each package will work, aside from mention that Virgin Phone services will range from Talk Weekends to Talk Unlimited.

Labels: ntl-broadband, ntl-telewest-broadband, telewest-broadband, virgin-broadband, virgin-media-broadband

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

ISP Finalists - Best Consumer Broadband

ISP Finalists Announced For The 9th Annual UK Internet Industry Awards - The 2007 ISPAs

The Internet Services Providers' Association (ISPA UK) - the UK's leading Internet trade association - can today reveal the finalists in the ISP Division of The 2007 ISPAs - The 9th Annual UK Internet Industry Awards in association with Epitiro.

Kate Allen, Director of Amnesty International UK, will be the keynote speaker at The 2007 ISPAs. Ms Allen will address the Internet industry, Government and media representatives about the power of the Internet to help campaign for human rights, and Amnesty's IRREPRESSIBLE.INFO campaign, which is fighting to defend freedom of expression on the Internet.

For those categories related to broadband and other Internet related services, the finalists at The 2007 ISPAs are:

Best Dial-up

Biscit
ntl:telewest
Orange
Waitrose
Zen Internet

Best Consumer Email

Biscit
Madasafish
Namesco
Seriously Internet
Tiscali

Best Business Email

Biscit
Entanet
Exa Networks
Namesco
Zen Internet

Best Streaming

Astream
Groovy Gecko
Keen Computers
Mydeo
Streaming Wizard

Best Internet Telephony

Entacall
Keen Computers
Lumison
Seriously Vocal
Tesco

Best Wireless ISP

BOZII
Community Internet
The Cloud
West Somerset Internet

Best Portal

ntl:telewest
Madasafish
SidNet
Tiscali
Virgin.net

Best Consumer Broadband

Be Unlimited
Eclipse Internet
Entanet
Namesco
Seriously Internet

Best Business Broadband

Datanet
Eclipse Internet
Entanet
Kingston Communications
Namesco

Best Consumer ISP

Biscit
ntl:telewest
Orange
Tiscali
Virgin.net

Best Business ISP

Claranet
Datanet
Entanet
UKFast
Zen Internet

ISPA UK has been organising The ISPAs since 1999 to celebrate innovation and best practice in the Internet sector.

Board members from the Internet industry and Government representatives will gather to recognise the industry's achievements over the past year.

The ISPAs scheme is renowned for its independence and objectivity, reinforced for the fourth year by ISPA's research partner Epitiro. ISPA commissioned Epitiro to conduct tests and monitor the Internet services of entrants in the ISP Division over a three-month period. Following analysis of the data, the shortlists were selected for the coveted awards in the ISP Division.

Labels: biscit-broadband, business-broadband, general-broadband-news, nildram-broadband, ntl-broadband, ntl-telewest-broadband, orange-broadband, telewest-broadband, tiscali-broadband, virgin-broadband

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

ntl:Telewest TV On Demand reaches two million homes

ntl:Telewest, the UK's leading cable company, has today announced that its revolutionary On Demand service is now used regularly by over two million households.

The service, which empowers viewers by giving them greater control over what they watch and when they watch it, can be accessed using ntl On Demand or Telewest's Teleport service. Both services are available in ntl and Telewest's entry-level digital TV packages, which start from as little as £5.50 a month.

With more than 500 films at your fingertips, over 1,500 music videos and hundreds of TV shows on the service, there is always something to available to watch in an instant - at the touch of a button.

With award-winning programmes such as Lost, Desperate Housewives and Doctor Who and some TV shows available for free, combined with regular offers and promotions on films and music, it's not surprising the service has really taken-off since its launch 18 months ago.

Philip Snalune, managing director of consumer products at ntl:Telewest, said: "As lifestyles change TV viewing habits are also changing. ntl On Demand and Teleport provide choice, value and ease of use, giving viewers control and freedom over what to watch. By making premium shows available, we are making the service more compelling and attracting a bigger audience. We plan to continue expanding the choice of programmes offered as we believe this really is the future of television."

Telewest broadband

Labels: ntl-broadband, telewest-broadband

Friday, May 12, 2006

NTL Qtr 1 results - 191,000 new broadband subscribers

The following the merger of NTL and Telewest on March 3, 2006, NTL Incorporated became the UK's largest provider of residential broadband and the UK's leading provider of triple play services.

On the 9th May 2006, NTL Incorporated reported first quarter results for the quarter ended March 31, 2006.

Steve Burch, Chief Executive Officer of NTL, said:

“The first quarter showed real evidence of operational improvements in our consumer business, with an increase in ARPU driven by our successful focus on quality customer growth, improvements to RGU per customer and increasing triple play penetration.

“The merger of NTL with Telewest completed on March 3, 2006, and our integration is progressing well. Today, we are announcing our plans to accelerate our integration program to achieve a run rate of at least £250 million of annualized cost synergies by the end of 2007. Part of this process will involve outsourcing a significant number of jobs, where employment would be transferred to an external organization, as well as actual job reductions. In total, this will involve around 6,000 employees by the end of 2007. Around 80% of the reduction will take place within twelve months. The cost savings from the outsourcing and the job losses combined will be equivalent to around 3,400 full-time equivalent employees.

“On April 4, 2006, we announced our offer to acquire Virgin Mobile and a license for the Virgin brand allowing us to transform from the UK’s leading triple-play provider into a national entertainment and communications quad-play company, harnessing the power of the Virgin brand and leading our industry in product convergence.

“With the growth opportunities in our markets, together with substantial merger synergies, we believe we can drive significant free cash flow generation going forward, providing us with strong financial flexibility and improved capital deployment options.”

Broadband

We continue to experience strong growth in the number of broadband subscribers, with net additions of 191,400 in the quarter, compared to 191,700 in the previous quarter and 168,400 in the same quarter last year. Broadband penetration stands at 24.0% of our homes marketable and the outlook for growth remains strong.

As an end-to-end network owner, we have competitive strengths in the quality of broadband service that we offer. Customers can receive consistent speeds no matter where they live and our top speeds of 10Mb are available throughout our addressable areas.

Labels: ntl-broadband

Tuesday, May 09, 2006

NTL confirms 6,000 job losses

NTL has confirmed it is to axe around 6,000 UK jobs while outsourcing a "significant number" as part of its merger with Telewest.

In a statement today, NTL chief exec Steve Burch said the cableco is to "accelerate our integration program" so it can save £250m a year by the end of 2007.

Around 80 per cent of the job cuts will be carried out over the next 12 months.
But only yesterday NTL was telling employees that reports of the job cuts were still "speculation" and nothing was official.

Further information:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/09/ntl_job_cuts/

Labels: ntl-broadband

Friday, May 05, 2006

BT, NTL and AOL slammed in broadband survey

Three of the UK's leading broadband providers have been slammed for being pants, according to research carried out by price comparison website uSwitch.com.

Its survey of 16,000 grown-ups by pollsters YouGov found that BT, NTL and AOL - who between them account for half of all broadband subscribers in the UK - came bottom in seven out of nine categories between them.

In particular, the research found that four in ten BT customers believe the telco doesn't provide value, while a quarter of AOL customers are unhappy with the quality of their connection.
And when it comes to overall customer satisfaction, NTL came bottom of the pile, closely followed by BT.

Further information:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/05/05/uswitch_survey/

Labels: bt-broadband, ntl-broadband

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