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Virgin Media subscriber numbers

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12467…12

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    #92
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    The series link and recording scheduler are the worst though. So buggy.

    All these problems have been there since I got it a year ago. None of them have been fixed.


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    #93
    Skerries
    Registered Users Posts: 12,303 ✭✭✭✭Skerries


    what are the speeds for the Sky broadband packages as they worryingly don't list them?
    Untitled Image




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    #94
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,651 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    Skerries wrote: »
    what are the speeds for the Sky broadband packages as they worryingly don't list them?

    Absolutely max is 100mbit as the technology caps out at that.


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    #95
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Skerries wrote: »
    what are the speeds for the Sky broadband packages as they worryingly don't list them?

    Exactly the same as eircom's as they're using eircom's access infrastructure. In the UK they use BT - so, similar / slower fibre there too.


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    #96
    beauf
    Closed Accounts Posts: 22,651 ✭✭✭✭beauf


    I moved from 30mb to 120mb, not sure I notice the difference in day to day stuff. Even Netflix HD performs the same.
    I don't know if Sky/Eircom is any more reliable, or less reliable than the UPC offering though. Most of my issues with BB are not speed its patchy Wifi, or the BB dropping completely, or lag in games. I went with the Horizon to get a one box solutions, and I've ended up with three, the Horizon box, Modem, and my own Wifi router.


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    #97
    Joo0
    Registered Users Posts: 417 ✭✭Joo0


    aphex™ wrote: »
    UPC hardware/software has always been poor compared to SKY.

    I put this down to zero user testing and interaction design. Once the feature 'sort of' works the developers let it out. Even their tablet apps pale in comparison and are more buggy.

    With Sky, they constantly improve things. For example in their latest update the newest recordings show at the top of your screen so you don't have to scroll all the way down the end.

    So Sky obviously have a process of reviewing their design and taking feedback from users which UPC don't.

    The Horizon box does look sleek but its anything but when you try and use it. On the other hand the sky box works but doesnt look great.


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    #98
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Joo0 wrote: »
    The Horizon box does look sleek but its anything but when you try and use it. On the other hand the sky box works but doesnt look great.

    Some older Sky boxes (the ones many people actually have) are horrendous though. Slow and crash-prone.
    I'd suspect there are still quite a lot of boxes out there that do not fully support on-demand.

    I had terrible difficulty getting a discount on an upgrade from an old box until I actually told them I was cancelling.
    This is after years and years of customer loyalty which clearly means nothing to them.

    I also find Sky's On-Demand services confusing. They're extremely hard to search, the menus are clunky and often they seem to mix up scheduled programmes for broadcast together with On Demand items in the serarch results making the whole process just drive me over to Netflix.

    I actually find rather than attempt to navigate Sky's menus most of the time, I Google what's on on my phone and then find the channel number!

    Sky's FAR from perfect. It's just the de facto standard.

    On the UPC side of things, the Horizon box to me looks like it's been optimised for use in a small apartment.
    A lot of Irish homes are quite sprawling and the built-in WiFi is very poor.

    The boxes I've seen used with Numericable in France are way nicer, and even include a BlueRay DVD player and really good hook ups for home theatre and all that.

    There's actually huge competition over there between the IPTV providers, Numericable (Cable) and CanalSat (Sky's counterpart).

    This might be a bit tough if you don't speak French, but it's worth seeing from the point of view of what happens when you start opening up a lot more IPTV options:

    https://youtu.be/C_uf6qerZO8 (From 2013). Skip a couple of mins in where their tech expert appears and she starts to discuss each of the boxes in detail with images behind.

    Bear in mind, France has a lot of areas where this stuff isn't possible too as there are plenty of houses stuck on ADSL and Orange (Eircom of France) initially resisted using VDSL2 cabinets and then didn't get FTTH out to enough people quickly enough. That's now changed a bit and there is now increasingly extensive FTTH rollout in urban areas.

    Still worth a flick past though as I think the French market's quite a bit more advanced than the UK or here, especially for TV providers.

    The products are basically sold by the capabilities of their particular "box" and these have become basically consumer products, much like game consoles.

    Orange and SFR actually offer cloud-based gaming where the processor power is in their servers.

    Numericable Box : http://offres.numericable.fr/labox

    Modem: Broadcom 3383 500Mhz, 128Mb Ram, EuroDOCSIS 3.0, two frequency ranges, gigabit ethernet.
    TV decoder: Intel Groveland 4235, Intel Atom CE4256, 1GB RAM, 2GB Flash, supports 4 TVs from one box.
    WiFi: 802.11n - ultra wide range antennae (a selling point)
    Connectivity: 4 X Gigabit Ethernet, 2 X RJ11 phone, 1 HDMI, 1 SCART, 3 USB, 2 RCA
    Built-in BlueRay 3D ready DVD player.
    160 GB removable HD - expandable to 1TB with self-install modular HD that slides into a slot.
    Full media centre software which connects to other devices using DLNA standards as well as serving up video to iPads and Android pads.
    You can even take a 15 second screen grab from any tv show and upload to Facebook ...

    Our two providers are still not in this league of STB.

    €41.99 / month 280 channels (55 HD), unlimited calls in France and 100 countries, unlimited mobile calls, TV on your tablet, access to 30,000 Video-on-demand programmes and .... 400Mbit/s ineternet!!


  • Options
    #99
    7upfree
    Registered Users Posts: 2,124 ✭✭✭7upfree


    beauf wrote: »
    I find the box isn't reliable doing that. On mine it slows to a crawl and the recordings are often messed up.
    Works perfectly at home?


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    #100
    Joo0
    Registered Users Posts: 417 ✭✭Joo0


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    Some older Sky boxes (the ones many people actually have) are horrendous though. Slow and crash-prone.
    I'd suspect there are still quite a lot of boxes out there that do not fully support on-demand.

    I had terrible difficulty getting a discount on an upgrade from an old box until I actually told them I was cancelling.
    This is after years and years of customer loyalty which clearly means nothing to them.

    I also find Sky's On-Demand services confusing. They're extremely hard to search, the menus are clunky and often they seem to mix up scheduled programmes for broadcast together with On Demand items in the serarch results making the whole process just drive me over to Netflix.

    I actually find rather than attempt to navigate Sky's menus most of the time, I Google what's on on my phone and then find the channel number!

    Sky's FAR from perfect. It's just the de facto standard.

    On the UPC side of things, the Horizon box to me looks like it's been optimised for use in a small apartment.
    A lot of Irish homes are quite sprawling and the built-in WiFi is very poor.

    The boxes I've seen used with Numericable in France are way nicer, and even include a BlueRay DVD player and really good hook ups for home theatre and all that.

    There's actually huge competition over there between the IPTV providers, Numericable (Cable) and CanalSat (Sky's counterpart).

    This might be a bit tough if you don't speak French, but it's worth seeing from the point of view of what happens when you start opening up a lot more IPTV options:

    https://youtu.be/C_uf6qerZO8 (From 2013). Skip a couple of mins in where their tech expert appears and she starts to discuss each of the boxes in detail with images behind.

    Bear in mind, France has a lot of areas where this stuff isn't possible too as there are plenty of houses stuck on ADSL and Orange (Eircom of France) initially resisted using VDSL2 cabinets and then didn't get FTTH out to enough people quickly enough. That's now changed a bit and there is now increasingly extensive FTTH rollout in urban areas.

    Still worth a flick past though as I think the French market's quite a bit more advanced than the UK or here, especially for TV providers.

    The products are basically sold by the capabilities of their particular "box" and these have become basically consumer products, much like game consoles.

    Orange and SFR actually offer cloud-based gaming where the processor power is in their servers.

    Numericable Box : http://offres.numericable.fr/labox

    Modem: Broadcom 3383 500Mhz, 128Mb Ram, EuroDOCSIS 3.0, two frequency ranges, gigabit ethernet.
    TV decoder: Intel Groveland 4235, Intel Atom CE4256, 1GB RAM, 2GB Flash, supports 4 TVs from one box.
    WiFi: 802.11n - ultra wide range antennae (a selling point)
    Connectivity: 4 X Gigabit Ethernet, 2 X RJ11 phone, 1 HDMI, 1 SCART, 3 USB, 2 RCA
    Built-in BlueRay 3D ready DVD player.
    160 GB removable HD - expandable to 1TB with self-install modular HD that slides into a slot.
    Full media centre software which connects to other devices using DLNA standards as well as serving up video to iPads and Android pads.
    You can even take a 15 second screen grab from any tv show and upload to Facebook ...

    Our two providers are still not in this league of STB.

    €41.99 / month 280 channels (55 HD), unlimited calls in France and 100 countries, unlimited mobile calls, TV on your tablet, access to 30,000 Video-on-demand programmes and .... 400Mbit/s ineternet!!
    You pay that for just TV here! No wonder Sky don't operate in France not the place for easy profits


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    #101
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,511 Mod ✭✭✭✭icdg


    I wouldn't say that, Canal+ were utterly dominant in that market until relatively recently, having had a massive head start on cable due to their terrestrial pay-TV channel (the only one of its kind in Europe before DTT came along). They had a market share of 70% at one stage.


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    #102
    The Cush
    Registered Users Posts: 15,479 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    UPC Q2 2015 numbers published today (in brackets, quarter on quarter +/-)
    http://www.libertyglobal.com/pdf/press-release/Liberty-Global-Earnings-Release-Q2-15-FINAL.pdf

    Video Subscribers - 379,300 (-7,200)
    --- Analogue Cable - 34,800 (-2,700)
    --- Digital Cable - 318,900 (-2,600)
    --- MMDS - 25,600 (-1,900)
    Internet - 367,300 (+1,500)
    Telephone - 352,400 (+2,800)

    Total Subscribers - 1,099,000 (-2,900)

    Premises - 505,200 (-6,600)

    From the report
    - mobile trials underway in Ireland


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    #103
    Joo0
    Registered Users Posts: 417 ✭✭Joo0


    TV side of things just gets worse and worse. The MMDS switch off next year will be another big hit.


  • Options
    #104
    The Cush
    Registered Users Posts: 15,479 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    Joo0 wrote: »
    TV side of things just gets worse and worse.

    Analogue and MMDS losses are a given but digital TV churn has decreased since the last quarter (q1 -11,700) mostly due to the free 12 month/18 month contract offer no doubt. Future results will probably see a positive figure - again due to the free TV offer. 6 months TV revenue is better than no TV revenue at all I guess.


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    #105
    L1011
    Moderators, Business & Finance Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 67,651 Mod ✭✭✭✭L1011


    How the hell there's still 25 people on MMDS let alone 25k when it has months to live astounds me. Have they been directly told its going yet?


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    #106
    The Cush
    Registered Users Posts: 15,479 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    L1011 wrote: »
    Have they been directly told its going yet?

    Unlikely, probably for most of their MMDS subscribers UPC don't have a replacement service for them so they'll hang on to that revenue stream for as long as they can. They're not going to push them to Sky too soon.


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    #107
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Is be very surprised if most aren't already gone.

    The problem UPC are having is Horizon really.

    Is the Virgin Media TiVo box substantially better?


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    #108
    JTMan
    Registered Users Posts: 5,535 ✭✭✭JTMan


    The Cush wrote: »
    Analogue and MMDS losses are a given but digital TV churn has decreased since the last quarter (q1 -11,700) mostly due to the free 12 month/18 month contract offer no doubt. Future results will probably see a positive figure - again due to the free TV offer. 6 months TV revenue is better than no TV revenue at all I guess.

    Firstly, thank you again The Cush for posting the numbers.

    The results are bad news for UPC. Analogue down. MMDS down. Digital down. Total subs down. Total premises down. Internet up but slowing. Landlines up but only thanks to forced bundling.

    To look at the digital TV sub numbers we need to look YoY rather than QoQ. In Q2 2014 UPC had 336,700 digital TV subs, in Q2 2015 UPC had 318,900 digital TV subs. UPC have lost 17,800 digital TV customers in a year. A drop of about 6%.

    In the USA, digital TV subs are also falling. UPC are part of a global trend. Streaming is replacing linear digital TV bundled packages. kids under 18 are 50% (yes, 50%) less likely to watch linear digital TV than 5 years ago. UPC have started into what could be a death spiral with linear TV bundled packages. There is a long way down to go. Forced 'free' TV bundles might help in the short-term but bundled linear TV packages are gradually being replaced by streaming. UPC, like all other global bundled TV providers, are in trouble.


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    #109
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,463 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    The Cush wrote: »
    Unlikely, probably for most of their MMDS subscribers UPC don't have a replacement service for them so they'll hang on to that revenue stream for as long as they can. They're not going to push them to Sky too soon.

    That is assuming that the revenue from those customers is greater then the maintenance and operating costs of the MMDS network. There will eventually be a tipping point where there just aren't enough customers on it to keep it going.
    SpaceTime wrote: »
    Is the Virgin Media TiVo box substantially better?

    From reviews I've read from the UK, not only is it vastly superior, but most people seem to think it is also much better then Sky HD!
    JTMan wrote: »
    In the USA, digital TV subs are also falling. UPC are part of a global trend. Streaming is replacing linear digital TV bundled packages. kids under 18 are 50% (yes, 50%) less likely to watch linear digital TV than 5 years ago. UPC have started into what could be a death spiral with linear TV bundled packages. There is a long way down to go. Forced 'free' TV bundles might help in the short-term but bundled linear TV packages are gradually being replaced by streaming. UPC, like all other global bundled TV providers, are in trouble.

    Yes, cord cutting is a definite trend. However it isn't all doom and gloom for UPC. What you need to remember is that they are no longer a TV company, they are now a broadband company.

    Obviously they like the extra free revenue from selling people TV, but it is no longer key to their business. As long as people are paying for broadband, then they are making money.

    However they do need to be concerned about Eircom and SIRO rolling out FTTH and becoming a greater threat to their core broadband business. I've no doubt they are already planning 500Mb/s services and even 1Gb/s services. But they may eventually have to think about rolling out their own FTTH network to compete.

    I expect that ad supported TV, will largely end up becoming free from UPC, Eircom and Vodafone, when bundled with broadband, just like phone services are now.

    I'd be much more concerned with Sky. I don't know how much future they have given that they don't have their own broadband network. They are looking very weak IMO.


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    #110
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Sky control access to most of the content of value though.


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    #111
    Damien360
    Registered Users Posts: 6,250 ✭✭✭Damien360


    bk wrote: »

    I'd be much more concerned with Sky. I don't know how much future they have given that they don't have their own broadband network. They are looking very weak IMO.

    I agree. I have UPC broadband but not their TV. I suspect, like myself, many would switch sky off and go over to UPC if they sorted out their useless TV box.

    Sky's only offering for me is their sky box which works brilliantly. It certainly is not price that keeps me.


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    #112
    JTMan
    Registered Users Posts: 5,535 ✭✭✭JTMan


    bk wrote: »
    Yes, cord cutting is a definite trend. However it isn't all doom and gloom for UPC. What you need to remember is that they are no longer a TV company, they are now a broadband company..

    A company's business is defined from where its revenue pertains.

    UPC know the future is broadband but UPC still make huge, but declining, revenue from linear bundles TV packages.

    UPC are a linear TV provider and broadband provider and a landline provider. These are UPC's biggest revenue lines.

    The gradual death of linear TV bundles is going to hurt UPC badly over the coming years. UPC can only bundle so much free-add ons with their broadband before competitors under cut with broadband only packages.


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    #113
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    They could do a few things to differentiate themselves from Sky

    1. Launch the C+ modules they've available in the Netherlands as an alternative to a set top box.

    2. Solve whatever problems people are having with horizon or move to the same kit Virgin are using in Britain.

    It would seem more logical for UPC Ireland to use the same platform as virgin for non linear TV anyway and just localise it for ireland. At the moment we're basically localising the Dutch, German, Swiss system ...


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    #114
    Joo0
    Registered Users Posts: 417 ✭✭Joo0


    It's confirmed in the talk to forum that MMDS will end next year


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    #115
    icdg
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,511 Mod ✭✭✭✭icdg


    SpaceTime wrote: »
    They could do a few things to differentiate themselves from Sky

    1. Launch the C+ modules they've available in the Netherlands as an alternative to a set top box.

    2. Solve whatever problems people are having with horizon or move to the same kit Virgin are using in Britain.

    It would seem more logical for UPC Ireland to use the same platform as virgin for non linear TV anyway and just localise it for ireland. At the moment we're basically localising the Dutch, German, Swiss system ...

    It will probably be UK kit in future. Although still using the UPC brand, UPC Ireland was "sold" by UPC to Virgin Media last year (in reality, since they are both Liberty Global subsidiaries, it is just an internal reorganisation).

    The UPC brand has been dropped in Holland, it is Ziggo now.


  • Options
    #116
    The Cush
    Registered Users Posts: 15,479 ✭✭✭✭The Cush


    Joo0 wrote: »
    It's confirmed in the talk to forum that MMDS will end next year

    That's the first public confirmation we've had from anyone in UPC since the decision to end the MMDS licences was published by Comreg more than 2 years ago.

    They'll be contacting customers at the appropriate time, whenever that'll be.
    UPC: Brian wrote: »
    Our MMDS service is based on retaining the license for this however, this is coming to an end next year and we're in the process of ending our MMDS service.
    We'll be direct contacting any customers at the appropriate time but this would stop any offers from being applied to MMDS serviced accounts.


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    #117
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    They certainly haven't filled in the holes in the Cork City cable network. I'm 2km from the city centre, surrounded by cable but we've been an MMDS only zone for as long as I remember.

    I doubt anyone still has MMDS around here though anymore. It's a fairly pointless product since UK terrestrial TV became available through Sky and FTA satellite.


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    #118
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    icdg wrote: »
    It will probably be UK kit in future. Although still using the UPC brand, UPC Ireland was "sold" by UPC to Virgin Media last year (in reality, since they are both Liberty Global subsidiaries, it is just an internal reorganisation).

    The UPC brand has been dropped in Holland, it is Ziggo now.

    Both virginmedia.ie and virginmobile.ie are registered by Virgin already.

    I'd say a full rebrand as Virgin is likely in the next while.

    Ideal thing would be to launch Virgin Mobile from UPC and then ditch the UPC brand in 2016.

    There's a lot of crossover from UK media here so, having the Virgin brand just consolidates the message.

    I've always though UPC is a fairly weak / bland identity anyway. It's just an old Dutch achronym from United Philips Cable. Seems the Dutch agree too, considering they've gone for Ziggo.

    Maybe they're not as bothered with a pan European single brand as they were a few years ago.


  • Options
    #119
    bk
    Moderators, Motoring & Transport Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 22,463 Mod ✭✭✭✭bk


    Lots of interesting comments.
    SpaceTime wrote: »
    Sky control access to most of the content of value though.

    I certainly wouldn't say that.

    They have a grip on Sports, but even that is slipping.

    All the Sky Sports channels combined have a viewing figure of only about 2%

    No Sky channel has a viewing figure of more then 1%! All Sky channels together (Sky 1, Atlantic, Living, Sports, Movies, News, etc.) add up to a market share of just 8.3%

    Meanwhile, 5 UK national channels viewing figures are 52% and when you look at the top 30 freeview/freesat channels (all the various More4, ITV2's, etc.) they end up with nearly 90% of the viewing audience.

    http://www.barb.co.uk/trendspotting/analysis/share-of-viewing-by-channel?_s=4
    http://www.barb.co.uk/whats-new/weekly-viewing-summary

    Sky have already lost control of Movies, due to over the top on-demand movie services. Their control of quality content is slipping due to Netflix and Amazon Prime.

    And now their control of sports is looking to be at risk. The main reason Sky had such control of sports, is because they owned and controlled the largest pay TV platform, which made it hard for anyone else to buy into and distribute sports.

    But with the pay TV market fracturing and IPTV and over the top streaming popping up, it gives other companies an alternative avenue to Sky to distribute sports.

    Other companies can buy the sports rights and deliver them via over the top streaming and IPTV and completely bypass Sky. That is how we have seen BT Sports come about to threaten Sky Sports and I expect we will see others in future like ESPN, Eurosports and MLB *.

    * Yes, Major League Baseball from the US! I know it sounds weird, but they have built a very sophisticated over the top streaming operation in the US and they are now buying up the rights to streaming other sports like the NHL in the US. They are now a major player.

    All of this is why I say Sky are looking to be on very shaky ground. Without their own broadband network, they look increasingly like they lack the means to control the market.

    I'm not saying that they are going to go burst tomorrow! But that if they want to remain relevant, I think they need to focus on turning themselves into a mix of Netflix, HBO OnDemand and MLB.

    They are starting to do that with Sky GO, but so far their efforts haven't been very impressive. Their technology isn't very good and they seem to be moving far too slow and stuck too much in still thinking they have a monopoly and can charge high prices.

    If they aren't careful they could end up getting quickly overtaking by smaller, nimble startups like Netflix and Amazon and also by much larger international companies like HBO, Google, Apple, etc., nevermind their local competitors like BT, BBC (BBC Player, etc.).

    We are facing very interesting times in the TV industry and I doubt Sky will still as powerful as they are today.
    JTMan wrote: »
    A company's business is defined from where its revenue pertains.

    UPC know the future is broadband but UPC still make huge, but declining, revenue from linear bundles TV packages.

    UPC are a linear TV provider and broadband provider and a landline provider. These are UPC's biggest revenue lines.

    The gradual death of linear TV bundles is going to hurt UPC badly over the coming years. UPC can only bundle so much free-add ons with their broadband before competitors under cut with broadband only packages.

    Of course, the lost revenue from TV will hurt, no doubt. But what I was getting at is that some people seem to think that because TV revenue is declining that UPC are doomed!

    That clearly isn't the case and I just wanted to inject a bit of reality.

    I think years ago that UPC recognised that the linear TV business wouldn't continue for ever, so they diversified very successfully into broadband and phone and now continue to diversify into mobile (UPC mobile) and content (TV3 purchase).

    Sure, they will milk the linear TV for as long as they can. And it will hurt when it goes away, but UPC will remain a profitable company due to it's diversification. In fact they may well end up more profitable as a diversified company then back when they were just a TV company. Similar to how Apple is MUCH more profitable when it diversified into ipods, iphones, ipads, etc. from just being a mac maker.

    Also what I was trying to get at is that the companies core business has now changed. In the past, they were primarily a TV distribution company, where TV subs paid for their network and made some profit and broadbnad was then an extra bonus revenue on top of that if they got it. Now that has flipped, they are now a communications company, for whom broadband subs pay for the network and makes them some profit, while TV subs are an extra bonus revenue on top of that.

    This is happening all over the industry, former cableco's, teleco's, mobico's are all changing into just diversified dataco's that carry a variety of services (TV, voice, mobile, etc.) over their data networks.
    icdg wrote: »
    It will probably be UK kit in future. Although still using the UPC brand, UPC Ireland was "sold" by UPC to Virgin Media last year (in reality, since they are both Liberty Global subsidiaries, it is just an internal reorganisation).

    Yes, I've heard rumours that the UPC Ireland staff are working closely with the Virgin Media hardware staff. Which is great as Virgin have great hardware.

    Not just the TiVo box, but also their modems. Unlike UPC's modems, Virgins are again highly recommended and reviewed. They are dual radio, dual band, 802.11ac models with excellent wifi performance and bridging supported as an easy option in the admin menus. In other words the complete opposite of UPC.

    SpaceTime wrote: »
    Both virginmedia.ie and virginmobile.ie are registered by Virgin already.

    I'd say a full rebrand as Virgin is likely in the next while.

    Ideal thing would be to launch Virgin Mobile from UPC and then ditch the UPC brand in 2016.

    There's a lot of crossover from UK media here so, having the Virgin brand just consolidates the message.

    I've always though UPC is a fairly weak / bland identity anyway. It's just an old Dutch achronym from United Philips Cable. Seems the Dutch agree too, considering they've gone for Ziggo.

    Maybe they're not as bothered with a pan European single brand as they were a few years ago.

    virginmedia.ie and viginmobile.ie already registere, that is very interesting.

    However I do think they will launch it as UPC Mobile, they already sort of have:

    http://www.upc.ie/customer-support/mobile/

    It is already available to select UPC customers for testing. €15 per month gets you unlimited calls, texts and data! Quiet an attractive deal.

    I guess the transfer to the Virgin Media brand just wasn't ready yet.

    And yes, LGI (UPC's parent) has noticeably been splitting up the UPC brand. They now use the following brands around europe: Virgin Media, Ziggo, Telenet, Untiymedia and cablecom. Noticeably, with the exception of Ireland, they are mostly only using the UPC brand for the Eastern European operations now (Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia).

    So yes, I wouldn't be surprised if it was renamed and I agree that UPC is a very bland brand.


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    #120
    ftakeith
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,251 ✭✭✭ftakeith


    Damien360 wrote: »
    I agree. I have UPC broadband but not their TV. I suspect, like myself, many would switch sky off and go over to UPC if they sorted out their useless TV box.

    Sky's only offering for me is their sky box which works brilliantly. It certainly is not price that keeps me.

    I have UPC Broadband in Crumlin, dublin 12

    But the service has declined in the last few months, I have made numerous calls to fix it but its not improved at all

    September is my last month, I have ordered sky fibre as I have sky tv, its going to take 2 weeks to be connected for sky fibre


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    #121
    SpaceTime
    Closed Accounts Posts: 9,088 ✭✭✭SpaceTime


    Seems they've a new version of Horizon out now. It's launched in Poland with a new box and its cloud based.

    That's the Pace built box they seem to be using :

    http://www.upc.cz/televize/prijimaci-zarizeni-digitalni-televize/hd_dvr_mediabox/


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