UPC Ireland to re-brand as Virgin Media

UPC
"United and Philips Communications" (UPC) was formed in 1995 between United International Holdings, Inc. (re-named UnitedGlobalCom in 1999) and Philips Electronic N.V.s to combine their cable holdings in twelve European countries and operate as a 50/50 joint venture. In December 1997, United acquired the remaining 50% of the ordinary shares held by Philips and the company was re-named "United Pan-Europe Communications N.V.". Following this acquisition, UPC became a nearly wholly owned subsidiary of United, except for approximately 7% of the stock held by a foundation to support employee stock option plans. In February 1999, UPC went public. Subsequently, United's ownership has reduced to about 53.3% (common class A stock), which are held through United's wholly owned subsidiary United Europe, Inc. As of end-March 2001, Microsoft Corp. has an interest of approximately 6.3% (common class A stock) in UPC.

A brief summary of what happened here in Ireland -

- In June 2005, Liberty Media International merged with UnitedGlobalCom, creating Liberty Global. UPC Ireland came into being after the acquisition of ntl/Cablelink and became part of UPC Holding B.V., Netherlands.
- In December 2004, UnitedGlobalCom (United Pan-Europe Communications N.V. (UPC)/UGC Europe) acquired Princes Holdings/Chorus Communications for approx. €120 million from its majority shareholder Liberty Media International.
- In Mar 2004, Liberty Media acquired the remaining half of Princes Holdings Limited from Independent Newspapers. Princes Holdings owned 100% of Chorus Communications (cable/MMDS franchises outside Dublin/Galway/Waterford).
- In Jan 2004, Liberty Media acquired a majority stake in UnitedGlobalCom, Liberty Media International was later spun off (including UCG and other cable interests)
- In 1998 TCI (Liberty Media) bought out UIH's (later UnitedGlobalCom) 25% share of Princes Holdings (Irish Multichannel). Rebranded Chorus Communications in 2000 following the acquisition of Suir Nore Relays and CMI Cable.
- In 1992 Princes Holdings was formed as a 50:50 joint venture between Independent Newspapers (Independent Wireless Cable Ltd) 50% and US Telecommunications companies UIH (later UnitedGlobalCom) 25% and TCI (Liberty Media) 25%.
- In 1999 Independent Wireless Cable (an Irish Independent Newspapers company) were awarded 7 MMDS licences as East Coast Multichannel. (They also held minority shareholdings in Cork Communications (Cork Multichannel) and Westward Cables (Westward Multichannel/Horizon Multichannel) when they were awarded 4 and 7 MMDS licences respectively).

"Each of our 500,000 customers will get a free 3 month pass to Virgin Mobile"

Take a screen of the prices and services now, i have a feeling we'll see some sneaky increases somewhere

Wabbit Ears wrote: »

Huge press thing going on this morning

Richard Branson is over for it, full page article on him and the changeover to Virgin media in last Sunday's Business Post (he's on tomorrow night's Late Late Show also).

Jaime Ambitious Historian wrote: »

.

Richard Branson is on the Late Late Show tomorrow to promote the rebrand.

What a terrible show. I can't understand how anyone pays a TV Licence for that tripe of an advertising platform.

"About us"

http://www.upc.ie/here-comes-the-magic/?today=true&returnto=http://www.upc.ie/about-us/press/2015/upc-becomes-virgin-media/

Light on detail

According to Magnus Ternsjö in an interview earlier on Newstalk they won't be adopting the Tivo box, the Horizon box is staying but will get a new user interface before the end of the year.

as long as my current package doesnt go up in price then i dont care about this change. if it does go up then hello sky.

The installers/engineers must hate this sh1t. Every time there's a rebrand they're required to take the old box cover off the wall and replace it with the new one, even if the call-out was only a 30 seconds job where they fiddled with the cables a bit.

Explosive_Cornflake wrote:

What a terrible show. I can't understand how anyone pays a TV Licence for that tripe of an advertising platform.

The late late show is one of the most watched TV shows in Ireland and the two RTE channels account for the vast vast majority of TV viewing in Ireland.

You are entitled to your opinion, but it bears up to no scrutiny whatsoever.

icdg wrote: »

Plenty of other places to talk about the Late Late Show, this thread is about Virgin Media

Richard Branson will be on The Late Late Show on Friday Night in a pre-recorded interview. Is it still sponsored by Sky Broadband?

"We're working on something very special...
We're making lots of changes and will be back very soon."


Above now up on upc website.

Same stuff, just mobile added.

Nothing else different

Noticed they stopped taking orders for MMDS. Couple of weeks ago they were still offering it in Nenagh.

Magnus Ternsjö, CEO of UPC/Virgin Media’s operations in Ireland, has been appointed as CEO of UPC Hungary with effect from Nov 1st.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/virgin-s-irish-boss-magnus-ternsj%C3%B6-leaves-for-hungary-1.2388835
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2015/10/12/magnus-ternsjo-new-ceo-upc-hungary/

The Cush wrote: »

Magnus Ternsjö, CEO of UPC/Virgin Media’s operations in Ireland, has been appointed as CEO of UPC Hungary with effect from Nov 1st.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/media-and-marketing/virgin-s-irish-boss-magnus-ternsj%C3%B6-leaves-for-hungary-1.2388835
http://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2015/10/12/magnus-ternsjo-new-ceo-upc-hungary/

Not surprising technical will Virgin media Ireland have a CEO? Much of executive work will be from London????

All this re-branding crap and nowhere on it's site does it tell their existing MMDS customers they will be left without service from April 2016 as they lost their licence for it !
I phoned them this morning to confirm and after much over and back to her "supervisor" the lovely lady finally gave in and confirmed it to be true, but....she did confirm they were working on bringing fiber broadband to every part of the country..... what a load of bollocks lol
So for all you MMDS customers be sure you jump ship in time, and for those of you that depend on MMDS maybe because you can't fit a satellite dish to your property and you have crap broadband from Eircon or the like then it appears you may be fecked !!!

Would virgin media out of the goodness of their heart not return the license to local operators along with equipment/infrastructure, what happens the infrastructure? Will anyone take up the license?

Now that Virgin Media has taken over, they've said they aren't supporting Twonky. I tried using it but it was too much of a headache trying to get it to work. Is there an alternative programme that can do the same thing?

Elmo wrote: »

Would virgin media out of the goodness of their heart not return the license to local operators along with equipment/infrastructure, what happens the infrastructure? Will anyone take up the license?

The licences were issued by Comreg and are non transferable, they expire next April. The band is being reclaimed for more efficient nationwide use per a 2008 EU Commission Decision. The shutdown of MMDS is already underway.

That being said there's nothing to prevent UPC/Virgin Media bidding for some of the spectrum at auction and using it for TV retransmission as they do now except under new technical conditions such as a new channelling arrangement for the band, narrower channel blocks (5MHz instead of 8MHz), adjacent channel interference conditions to/from other services using the band. This scenario is unlikely though.

When the band comes up for auction, next year probably, the existing mobile operators will be keen bidders, for use by them as a capacity band (4G carrier aggregation) in combination with their coverage 700/800/900 bands. The existing MMDS mast sites will no doubt be used for mobile coverage if suitable (if they aren't used already).

Elmo wrote: »

Non-transferable unless the company is sold?

The licence conditions or expiry date don't change in that circumstance.