Chorus/NTL officially rebrand as UPC

Elmo

Just noticing the ads online. Anyone know when this started?

thefishone

Saw the ads in the newspapers as well,but it had been expected for a while now,I think.

paulm17781

Wow! Only 2 years late! :rolleyes:

Paulyh

pity they cant 'remove' their customer service staff aswell...........brutal.

surf board

Isn't the "NTL" brand owned by someone else? IIRC Virgin Media?


Just noticed that their "services available at my address" has been changed aswell, but to a worse version.

patrickmooney

Today is the launch of the UPC Brand.

paulm17781

patrickmooney wrote: »

Today is the launch of the UPC Brand.

Is there anything extra / new coming with this?

aidan_walsh

paulm17781 wrote: »

Is there anything extra / new coming with this?

The announcement for the "upto 100Mbps" broadbacd service.

bk

Today Chorus/NTL have officially rebranded as UPC

I just attended the media event and a few things from the event:

Will be launching 100mb broadband in the next few months.
Will launch Video On Demand in 2011
Craig Doyle is the new spokesperson for UPC
Announced the purchase of Broadworks, 6500 new customers, will be integrated into the UPC network over the next 3 months.

UPC want to renew the MMDS license and make the same investments in MMDS that they have been making into MMDS that they have been in cable.

Harpy

oh video on demand looking forward to that..
im on eircom broadband and still abit weary of upc broadband but 100mb is very tempting but my friend has it and it can stop working for a day or two for no reason every now and again..

problemchimp

customer service is always *****. For a company who now supplies phone packages you would think they might know how to ****** answer them!

dunworth1

hold on just a minute i thought they were to launch VOD this year

Kensington

dunworth1 wrote: »

hold on just a minute i thought they were to launch VOD this year

A lot of their set top boxes cannot support video on demand. Only the large UPC branded mediaboxes, Digital+ PVR and Digital+HD box are "VoD ready". I imagine there'll be a box swap programme kicking off later this year to replace all the ntl branded boxes with UPC ones.

And hopefully the added delay will mean they will launch with a fully functioning, properly tested, solid VoD service, not some wobbly, buggy, half baked system. Hopefully...

icdg

Threads merged,

Problemchimp, swap letters around to try to avoid the filters again and its a week long ban.

To business...

This has been a long time coming...UPC have been running Chorus and NTL since December 2005 and the integration of the two businesses was completed in 2007. Yet they still insisted on maintaining the old brands and many were beginning to wonder if they would ever bite the bullet and rebrand.

To reflect...

Chorus originated from the merger of the old Princes Holdings cable/MMDS operations with Cable Management Ireland. The Chorus Communication (as it originally was) brand was unvieled in October 2000, though the "Communication" part of the name didn't last long. Independent sold out of the group to Liberty Media in late 2004 which was the first step on the road which ended today.

The NTL name originated as the transmission business of the old UK Independent Broadcasting Authority. However the company that would become NTL was originally International CableTel and set up by Barclay Knapp in 1993. After CableTel bought NTL in 1996, it rebranded as NTL CableTel and in 1999 became "ntl:" (really NTL Incorporated). It also bought Telecom Éireann and RTÉ's Cablelink business that year which became NTL Ireland in May 2000.

In 2005 NTL (which has since changed its name to Virgin Media) sold NTL Ireland to Liberty Global, beguinning the process of merging it with Chorus. That process completed in 2007 giving us "Chorus NTL - a UPC Company", a brand name which should never have lasted more than a couple of months but which got nearly three years of airtime...

So almost the entire cable network is now under one name as UPC, a network which was once composed of many, many independent companies. However to compete adequately with Sky, consolidation was really inevitable.

A final postscript is that this marks the final killing off of the NTL brand...Virgin Media having finally decided to drop it from their business operations (which were still trading as NTL/Telewest) just under three months ago.

ongarite

The best news in this is that UPC have taken over the Broadworks network.
Many developments in Dublin 15 in particular under "exclusive" TV and cable internet company who provided a frankly terrible terrible service.

Craig Doyle Whooo, so exited.

who is this

The stupidest thing is they still never upgraded the software on those horrible old Pace boxes. Even changing that glaring colour scheme would be nice.

At first I thought "Of course they will eventually..." and then maybe started to think that was too much to expect. But when I was visiting family in England, I noticed their old box had Virgin Media branded software, despite being older still than the ****ty Pace ones.

Wouldn't mind, but they still give them out and all...

bk

Chatting with various folks from UPC today, they didn't want to finally rebrand to UPC until they had the majority of the network upgraded and had various new products and services in place such as HD and PVR.

The Cush

bk wrote: »

Today Chorus/NTL have officially rebranded as UPC

I just attended the media event and a few things from the event:

Any mention of EasyTV or DTT at the event?

EDIT: Question answered in today's Irish Independent

Chorus-NTL renamed UPC as it rings changes with new services

By Thomas Molloy
Wednesday May 05 2010

...

UPC's owner is also mulling over a contract to roll out the next generation of paid-for TV in Ireland. Liberty Global, along with consortium partner RTE, was offered the contract for Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) last week when talks with a separate consortium collapsed. DTT will become the transmission method for Ireland's four free-to-air channels by 2012 at the latest.

UPC's spokesperson yesterday said the DTT contract was "under consideration".

- Thomas Molloy

Elmo

bk wrote: »

Chatting with various folks from UPC today, they didn't want to finally rebrand to UPC until they had the majority of the network upgraded and had various new products and services in place such as HD and PVR.

Yeah it took us 5 years to get a good service up and running we didn't think it would take so long to upgrade everything, we felt that both the Chorus and NTL brands should really take the stick for bad Customer care and lack of triple play in some areas.

In saying that I think Chorus NTL UPC are excellent ...... as long as you don't have to call customer care, fortunately you shouldn't have to all that much.

gpjordanf1

bk wrote: »

UPC want to renew the MMDS license and make the same investments in MMDS that they have been making into MMDS that they have been in cable.

Hi

As an MMDS customer I am most interested in the above statement? What do they plan to do? Have you any more details?
Will this involve broadband, HD etc because it has been said here that this is impossible?

Thanks

channelsurfer2

UPC want to renew the MMDS license and make the same investments in MMDS that they have been making into MMDS that they have been in cable.[/QUOTE]

laughs out loud at that part..... more like they realise that sky have gazumped them a 100 times over with their offering while they let mmds die a death and insisted on putting mmds up in every new housing estate that wasnt dead centre of their provincal towns old cable area instead of new cable.... I will wait with baited breath for timescales on this if it ever happens

Charlie-Bravo

gpjordanf1 wrote: »

Hi

As an MMDS customer I am most interested in the above statement? What do they plan to do? Have you any more details?
Will this involve broadband, HD etc because it has been said here that this is impossible?

Thanks

Unless you are in a large town, like me in Greystones, you are not going to get the cabled broadband with MMDS (a hybrid system)...the broadband still has to be a physical fibre cable connected back to UPC or wherever their designated hub systems is.

And the phone isn't going to work without the broadband system.

For the TV end of it, the channels on MMDS are limited due to QAM 64 limitations over MMDS...when they upgrade the system to QAM 256 then maybe people like me in a large town like Greystones will get all the channels and reb button options the Dubs have!

It's about time they rebranded - but don't stop there! Keep upgrading....

who is this

Kensington wrote: »

I imagine there'll be a box swap programme kicking off later this year to replace all the ntl branded boxes with UPC ones.

Doubt that. They've been giving out the old NTL-ones with a UPC sticker over the NTL part, until, at best very recently, at worst currently.

Kensington

who is this wrote: »

Doubt that. They've been giving out the old NTL-ones with a UPC sticker over the NTL part, until, at best very recently, at worst currently.

Probably into areas which will not be VOD capable.

The tax man

who is this wrote: »

The stupidest thing is they still never upgraded the software on those horrible old Pace boxes.

Older Pace boxes are currently out on test running with the newer software.

paulm17781

The tax man wrote: »

Older Pace boxes are currently out on test running with the newer software.

Do they perform any better? Was it always bad software or just poor hardware?

The tax man

paulm17781 wrote: »

Do they perform any better? Was it always bad software or just poor hardware?

No idea. Not involved in the trail this time.

DingDong

For anyone interested UPC now have a Facebook and twitter account. You can also pick up a free iPhone skin detail here.

icdg

who is this wrote: »

Doubt that. They've been giving out the old NTL-ones with a UPC sticker over the NTL part, until, at best very recently, at worst currently.

The very first NTL boxes (Pace Di40xx) have been swapped for UPC boxes. At least, mine has...

Solair

There are also a huge number of ex Chorus cable Sagem boxed knocking around in Cork and elsewhere. Similar size and spec to the old ntl pace box.

Incidentally, UPC's telephone service's voicemail still proudly welcomes you to NTL (even in ex Chorus areas)

deanh

noticed last night that the info. channel 100 has been rebranded. Fans(??) of the presenter will see that his role has been reduced to doing the voiceover and he no longer seems to appear on screen.

paulm17781

deanh wrote: »

noticed last night that the info. channel 100 has been rebranded. Fans(??) of the presenter will see that his role has been reduced to doing the voiceover and he no longer seems to appear on screen.

That's a slight improvement but still, knowing he's there is enough to put me off.

An Tarbh

Craig Doyle isn't much of an improvement in fairness.