NTL |
NTL is a United States listed company providing cable services. It is listed on NASDAQ, but does the majority of its business in the United Kingdom.
=Company structure=
The company is called NTL Group Ltd. This is made up of 2 major divisions; Home and Business.
*Home provides telephone, Internet, digital television and radio services to residential premises via cable. *Business offers communication packages to commercial clients.
==History==
NTL was founded in .
The collapse of the telecommunications markets from mid-2000 was a serious blow to the company. This, combined with NTL s rapid acquisition of local cable operators, lead to severe integration problems. ntl, struggling to cope with rapid expansion and suffering from significant customer service problems, then had to content with the creation in November 2002 of one of the UK s first consumer lobby groups, nthellworld. Devalued and struggling with debts of around $18bn NTL was forced to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in May 2002 in order to organise a refinancing deal. The company did not emerge from protection until January 2003, having converted around $11bn of debt into shares in what was, technically, the largest debt default in US corporate history. the company s debt was reduced to $6.4bn. NTL itself was reorganised into NTL Inc. covering the UK and Irish markets and NTL Europe Inc. for the French, Swiss and German parts of the business. The NTL president, CEO and co-founder Barclay Knapp, as well as Stephen Carter, the MD and COO, were replaced.
=Present day=
Since exiting from Chapter 11, NTL has produced an operating profit. In 2004 plans were announced to split the Broadcast division off from the main company. In December of 2004 NTL sold their Broadcast unit to a consortium led by Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group (MCG) for £1.27 billion. The division was renamed Arqiva in May 2005. This sale will allow NTL to focus on their core businesses of providing communications packages and cable services.
Since late 2003 there has been discussion of a merger between NTL & Telewest, the UK s other main cable operator. An announcement is expected soon (August 2005). Thanks to their geographically different areas NTL & Telewest have co-operated in the past, such as directing potential customers who are outside their own areas. If/when the merger does take place the UK cable industry will be dominated by a single supplier with only a couple of tiny independent cable operators remaining, such as WightCable (covering the Isle Of Wight, South West Scotland and North West England) & Kingston Communications (covering the Kingston-upon-Hull area). A merger is viewed as an overly positive move to help cable compete against Sky Digital in the premium television market, and against British_Telecommunications (and British_Telecommunications provided ADSL services) in the voice telephone and broadband markets.
In autumn 2004, NTL purchased Virgin.net.
Despite NTL Ireland turning a profit, in May 2005, NTL sold their Dublin, Galway, and Waterford cable business, which they acquired in 1999 for 680 million from the Irish government, to UGC Europe for 325(£222) million. This was after having spent in excess of 100 million on network infrastructure. MS Irish Cable Holdings, a subsidiary of Morgan Stanley, will hold the stake on UGC s behalf, until the deal gets regulatory clearance. It is thought that this is another precursor to a potential merger with competing cableco, Telewest
In January 2005, NTL started rolling out Video On Demand. The content is selected by NTL and covers most genres including music videos, children s programming and adult entertainment. This is an extension to the basic pay per view services the company offered for Film and Sport content, and the new service allows customers to rewind, fast forward and pause content.
NTL s debt was cut to £1.445 billion by July 2005, with an operating cashflow of £178 million. The company had 3.2 million customers who take at least one service from them, with the 1.4 million subscribers to Broadband Internet access services making NTL the market leader.
= Telewest merger =
On October 3, 2005, NTL announced its multi-billion pound purchase of Telewest, the second largest British cable company, creating one of the largest media companies in the UK.
=NTL Broadband=
NTL offers broadband connections through its digital television set-top box or standalone cable modem. Current speeds offered are 1 Mbit/s, 2 Mbit/s and 3 Mbit/s with prices at £17.99, £24.99 and £37.99 respectively. Customers were upgraded for no charge from the previous 300 Kbit/s, 750 Kbit/s and 1.5 Mbit/s tariffs in March 2005. Originally, a £25.00 administration fee was planned, however, after BT, AOL, and other ISPs announced similar speed increases during February 2005, NTL decided to drop the charge. Usage guidelines have been introduced at 3GB per month (upload and download combined), 1GB per day and 1GB per day respectively, and it is thought that hard capping will be implemented later in the year on the 1Mbit/s speed, possibly around August. The 3GB cap has caused uproar amongst 1Mbit/s customers. In the future, an additional introduction speed of 300 Kbit/s will be added, costing £15.99 per month, according to documents released to shareholders.
In August 2005, it was announced [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4749987.stm] that all NTL broadband customers would be upgraded to a 10 Mbit/s connection with a 75GB monthly cap. Upload speeds are, as yet, unconfirmed. These changes are to be effective for current 3 Mbit/s customers by the end of the year, and for all others in 2006.
=External links=
=See also=
Nthellworld
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