Article : NTL & UGC

bringitdown

From: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single4785

“If UGC succeeds in acquiring NTL Ireland in six to nine months, it will be able to upgrade its network very quickly and ultimately offer 15Mbps to 30Mbps of always-on internet, free phone calls and television services. Dublin has the highest penetration of cable than any city in Europe. The only problem is the cable network is in bad shape and needs investment. In the US, cable companies such as ComCast and Time Warner are outperforming traditional fixed-line telecom companies."

Drools.

Blaster99

All good, but I think much the same was said when NTL took over Cablelink. And much the same was said when NTL announced that they were rolling out broadband to more areas a year or so ago. If they do seriously roll out broadband on the cable network and offer proper speeds, that would be excellent. I won't hold my breath, though.

vibe666

quick, everyone hold your breath, NTL is going to give us all cheap high speed broadband!

unkel

Holding my breath

a cable modem on coaxial cable can hold 50 times more capacity than copper wire and as a result Eircom will have a real competitor on its hands

bk

vibe666 wrote:

quick, everyone hold your breath, NTL is going to give us all cheap high speed broadband!

The thing is they have already given me that, I have 1.5m for €50 and in a months time it's going to be 3m for €45, that is very impressive

Yes, in the past I have been very critical of NTL, however they seem to have turned over a new leaf in the last 3 to 6 months. They seem to be agressively rolling out BB in Dublin and now they are starting in Galway and Waterford also.

Personally my opinion of them is starting to change and I'm willing to give them a chance.

The difference between NTL:UK and UGC is that UGC's financils are very healthy, while they did make a loss last year, it seems to be on the back of very heavy investment in infrastructure and new markets, while their debt is relatively low.

In the markets they have entered they have invested heavily in upgrading their infrastructure and their most profitable sector has been the triple play of video, voice and data. As a company UGC are not interested in video only markets, they are really only interested in high speed data markets and they seem to pride themselves on having one of the best IP backbones in Europe with plenty of capacity for offering video over IP on it. All of this is very positive for the future of NTL:Ireland and the Irish BB market.

BTW we are unlikely to see speeds of 20m soon, a lot of this bandwidth will be used up by Video on Demand (VoD) services and Video over IP. A good example is a colleague of mine living in San Francisco. He has cable BB at 4m, however it is actually more like a 12m connection because he can actually get real time VoD movies over it.

This means he rents a movie for 24 hours and he can pause, rewind, fastforward all he likes for the 24 hour period and this is all supplied with just a little buffering in his cable box over the other 8m of the cable bandwidth.

Infini

Oh My GOD!!! :eek:
Please Be true, PLEASE BE TRUE!!!

causal

There is certainly great potential for the cable networks and data*
The future could be bright**, I'm hopeful it will be

*data - whatever it may be (text, audio, audiovisual)
**bright - very subtle pun on the laser light in optical fibres being the future

causal

crawler

I believe they will succeed....it can be done, it just takes investment and if done correctly I would think that it could change many many things.

There is simply more available frequency in Co-ax than copper no matter what technology is used.....

Only thing is, it will take time

Infini

Hope they do upgrade. Then they'll be finally someone who could whip eircons ass up and down Dublin for their crappy service.

causal

Exactly. Imagine if ntl offered a service throughout Dublin (&Galway&Waterford) similar to the Cablesurf service of 9Mbps/512kbps no cap for €40 per month :eek:

They'd have to get the competition authority involved - coz there would be no competition!!

causal

AdMMM

crawler wrote:

I believe they will succeed....it can be done, it just takes investment and if done correctly I would think that it could change many many things.

There is simply more available frequency in Co-ax than copper no matter what technology is used.....

Only thing is, it will take time

It would take time... and money.

With the latest technologies coming at a premium, and customers always demanding lower prices it would take UGC decades to make back the money. However, if they do invest in it, it would surely propel Ireland into one of the front runners in broadband terms for many years to come.

However I feel by time the required investment is given the go ahead it will be too late and Ireland will only be bringing itself back onto level terms infrastructure wise with other countries instead of trying to surpass them!

Serbian

Blaster99 wrote:

All good, but I think much the same was said when NTL took over Cablelink. And much the same was said when NTL announced that they were rolling out broadband to more areas a year or so ago. If they do seriously roll out broadband on the cable network and offer proper speeds, that would be excellent. I won't hold my breath, though.

I think this post is pretty much spot on. The theoretical top speed for ADSL is 8 Mbit/sec but we aren't going to see that for a good while in Ireland. It's probably not even possible on the crappy telephone infrastructure we have here. So, just because some article states what the capabilities of Cable are, it really doesn't mean we are going to see them anytime soon.

It probably would make more sense to UGC to just stay a little bit ahead of the competition (pretty much like what NTL are doing now - eircom offer 2 mbit, NTL offer 3 etc) as they will save on bandwith costs and everyone will be happy as they are getting the fastest service in Ireland.

causal

Serbian wrote:

the fastest service in Ireland.

Ehh, did you see my post (#10) above about Cablesurf?

I do agree with the other things you said though.

causal

Nietzschean

causal wrote:

Ehh, did you see my post (#10) above about Cablesurf?

I do agree with the other things you said though.

causal

considering how much of the population cable surf serve they can be dis-regarded as far as NTL are concerned. They are in no competing markets for one

KTRIC

I'd be able to download my *cough* spreadsheats *cough* alot quicker

causal

Darth Bobo wrote:

considering how much of the population cable surf serve they can be dis-regarded as far as NTL are concerned. They are in no competing markets for one

NTL do not offer the fastest service in Ireland. The statement I was commenting on was

everyone will be happy as they are getting the fastest service in Ireland.

As for NTL not being in competing markets with Cablesurf - that's not certain: NTL are now rolling out in Waterford as per this thread, and Dungarvan is only about 20 miles from Waterford city. So there'll be a big difference in the two offerings in Waterford:
Cablesurf:- €40 - 9Mbps - 512kbps - no cap
NTL:

---

€45 - 3Mbps - 300kbps - 40GB cap

causal

Nietzschean

yes but my point still stands NTL will not roll out anywhere another cable provider is already present, it just wouldn't be sensible regardless of the others BB offering(why goto a competing market).

As for ntl offering faster service in ireland, have you used this cablesurf in dungarven ? what are their backbone speeds like? is this 9mbit achieved often? etc...

Serbian

causal wrote:

NTL do not offer the fastest service in Ireland.

Point taken, thought do Cablesurf have any plans to expand their offering outside of Waterford?

causal

Darth Bobo wrote:

As for ntl offering faster service in ireland, have you used this cablesurf in dungarven ? what are their backbone speeds like? is this 9mbit achieved often? etc...

It seems to be pretty good, have a peek at this thread.

serbian wrote:

Point taken, thought do Cablesurf have any plans to expand their offering outside of Waterford?

I don't know. But I wonder if NTL (or UGC) will expand into Dungarvan - by buying out Cablesurf!

causal

Mutant_Fruit

Out of interest... is this UGC the same UGC as the company behind UGC cinemas?

Creamy Goodness

all i care about is that they hurry up and upgrade bray.

Serbian

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Out of interest... is this UGC the same UGC as the company behind UGC cinemas?

Apparently so, but they also happen to be one of the largest cable broadband providers in the world. See: http://www.ugceurope.com/. According to their main site, they also already own Chorus. (http://www.unitedglobal.com/euMain.cfm#ireland)

Rodo

Darth Bobo wrote:

yes but my point still stands NTL will not roll out anywhere another cable provider is already present, it just wouldn't be sensible regardless of the others BB offering(why goto a competing market).

As for ntl offering faster service in ireland, have you used this cablesurf in dungarven ? what are their backbone speeds like? is this 9mbit achieved often? etc...

The cost of another cable company going in while there is already a catv business in operating would be madness, the cost of comissioning a project like that would bankrupt any cable company, unless your mister chelsea !!!!

Nietzschean

Rodo wrote:

The cost of another cable company going in while there is already a catv business in operating would be madness, the cost of comissioning a project like that would bankrupt any cable company, unless your mister chelsea !!!!

not what i said?

Raoul Duke

Serbian wrote:

Apparently so, but they also happen to be one of the largest cable broadband providers in the world. See: http://www.ugceurope.com/. According to their main site, they also already own Chorus. (http://www.unitedglobal.com/euMain.cfm#ireland)

The UGC cinema chain were sold off last Decemberish. The largest chain in the UK now owns them. I forget their name.

causal

Dangit, I was anticipating a serious Video On Demand catalogue there

causal

Sarsfield

See here http://www.rte.ie/business/2005/0509/NTL.html

Moriarty

upc.ie has been registered by them.

Wonder how long regulatory approval will take now.

morlan

The sale of NTL Ireland is seen as one of the preparatory steps before NTL's widely-expected merger with Telewest Global.

This is getting confusing!

crawler

Moriarty wrote:

upc.ie has been registered by them.

Wonder how long regulatory approval will take now.

7-9 months.

More here http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single4792

Irishstabber

Informed sources have told siliconrepublic.com that UGC — with a war chest of €1bn for infrastructure and acquisitions

God I love that sentence.
Something that springs to my mind is...can we expect a name change?

causal

[pedant]The article says 6-9 months.[/pedant]

morlan wrote:

This is getting confusing!

morlan, the merger with Telewest is ntl:uk (not ntl:Ireland), have a peek at electric news

Telewest and NTL, Britain's two cable-television operators, are heading towards agreement on a STG5.5 billion merger. According to the report, Telewest will meet investment banks in New York this week to decide on a line-up of advisers for the merger. NTL has asked Goldman Sachs to advise it on the merger.

Back home again, ntl:Ireland was sold to Goldman Sachs (as MS Irish Cable Holdings BV)who will warehouse it until they can sell it on to UGC (as UPC Ireland) subject to lengthy Competition Authority approval.

Clear as mud...
causal

bk

causal wrote:

Back home again, ntl:Ireland was sold to Goldman Sachs (as MS Irish Cable Holdings BV)who will warehouse it until they can sell it on to UGC (as UPC Ireland) subject to lengthy Competition Authority approval.

Clear as mud...
causal

You forgot to add that the Broadband product will probably be sold under the Chello brand name

crawler

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- NTL Inc. (NTLI) sold its telecommunications business in Ireland to a Morgan Stanley (MWD) affiliate for EUR325 million, which translates to about $416.7 million.

In a press release Monday, NTL said it sold the assets to focus on its U.K. communications and content-distribution operations.

NTL plans to use the proceeds from the asset sale to MS Irish Cable Holdings BV to repay the principal on its senior credit facility. NTL ended 2004 with long-term debt of $5.66 billion.

Morgan Stanley will sell the assets acquired from NTL to UnitedGlobalCom Inc.'s (UCOMA) UPC Ireland BV unit. The sale to UnitedGlobalCom requires regulatory approvals.

This deal will transfer control of the former NTL assets to media mogul John Malone, who serves as chairman of Liberty Media Corp. (L). Liberty owns 53% of UnitedGlobalCom shares, and 90% of its voting shares.

Separately, UnitedGlobalCom confirmed the deal with Morgan Stanley, and said it loaned the funds MS Irish used to purchase NTL's Irish telecommunications business.

Earlier Monday, Liberty Media said it swung to a first-quarter profit of $254 million, or 9 cents a share. The company's first-quarter revenue rose 14% to $2 billion.

Company Web site: http://www.ntl.com; http://www.unitedglobal.com

-Eamon Beltran; Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-5400; AskNewswires@dowjones.com

Snake Plisken

Is anyone a bit nervous about this? My heart sank when I heard who bought it! Anyone who has experienced the rubbish TV/Internet service provided by Chorus and then gone on to use NTL will agree that there is no comparision between the two with NTL blowing Chorus away withTV service/picture quality, Broadband rollout and increase in connection speeds provided, if the two merge into one, then I can see any future inprovement being severely hampered, plus there is the whole competition issue, if you buy your rival, then you have a monopoly situation!

Anyway just my initial thoughts on this deal.

Cheers

Snake

crawler

Snake Plisken wrote:

Is anyone a bit nervous about this? My heart sank when I heard who bought it! Anyone who has experienced the rubbish TV/Internet service provided by Chorus and then gone on to use NTL will agree that there is no comparision between the two with NTL blowing Chorus away withTV service/picture quality, Broadband rollout and increase in connection speeds provided, if the two merge into one, then I can see any future inprovement being severely hampered, plus there is the whole competition issue, if you buy your rival, then you have a monopoly situation!

Anyway just my initial thoughts on this deal.

Cheers

Snake

No, not at all - Chorus did not Buy NTL - UGC did. People are incorrectly making the same connection you made....I owuld be more inclined to look at what Chello do in France for a model of what is to come....The fact that they make a profit is a good sign too!!

Raskolnikov

crawler wrote:

No, not at all - Chorus did not Buy NTL - UGC did. People are incorrectly making the same connection you made....I owuld be more inclined to look at what Chello do in France for a model of what is to come....The fact that they make a profit is a good sign too!!

Surely there's no need to worry anyway since Chorus and NTL both operate in different parts of the country?

I wouldn't go holding off getting ADSL just yet because of these developments. You seriously have to wonder if UGC will have the stomach/investment to try and rebuild Ireland's cable infrastructure.

bk

Snake Plisken wrote:

Is anyone a bit nervous about this? My heart sank when I heard who bought it!

No not at all, quiet the opposite in fact.

Chorus hasn't bought NTL:Ireland.

What has happend is just last December UGC Europe, one of the largest cable companies in Europe bought Chorus. Now UGC Europe is also in the process of buying NTL:Ireland.

As a Corkonian living in Dublin, I have experienced both Chorus and NTL and I therefore understand your concerns. There is absolutely no comparison between Chorus and NTL. NTL is so much better it is not even funny. However it doesn't apply here. UGC Europe is a very large company with very healthy financils and seemingly a lot of money to spend on upgrading networks. Rumour has it that they are already starting to invest in the Chorus network and a similiar situation is likely to happen for NTL:Ireland network.

causal

A few articles of interest on the subject:

1) http://www.electricnews.net/news.html?code=9606292

Still, many expect that Ireland's Competition Commission will eventually allow the sale, in part because Chorus and NTL Ireland's networks do not overlap. Moreover, an Irish cable operator with near-national reach would have more resources to do battle with satellite TV firm British Sky Broadcasting (BSkyB), which has captured a large chunk of the Irish market.

And unfortunately this

Meanwhile, a report in Tuesday's Irish Times indicated that the combined NTL Ireland and Chorus operation, which will employ about 1,000 people, is likely to cut jobs once the merger goes ahead fully. "There will be a headcount reduction in the fullness of time," Shane O'Neill, the UGC executive leading the acquisition team, told the paper. "But it is not axiomatic that on day one it will lead to significant reductions."

2)Which is maybe a bit of a bitter pill to swallow considering this article: Rising revenues for Irish cable TV firms

3)From a customer point of view I'm optimistic about the takeover. Particularly considering this

Informed sources have told siliconrepublic.com that UGC — with a war chest of €1bn for infrastructure and acquisitions — is planning to spend €200m on upgrading its cable infrastructure in Ireland to be capable of handling frequencies of up to 850MHz and beyond.

causal

Snake Plisken

Probably in the broadband sector they will remain competative, but for the provision of TV services they will now be like the ESB, and will put up prices whenever they like! And don't tell me me about being regulated, as recent increases in the price of electricity have shown it doesn't work!

Snake

Blaster99

And the situation is different now in what way exactly? I don't recall having a choice of cable TV companies.

causal

afaik Sky have the upper hand in the digital tv market; so the all new bigger brighter 'ntl+chorus' will be better able to compete with Sky - and hopefully that will benefit the consumer

causal

bk

Snake Plisken wrote:

Probably in the broadband sector they will remain competative, but for the provision of TV services they will now be like the ESB, and will put up prices whenever they like! And don't tell me me about being regulated, as recent increases in the price of electricity have shown it doesn't work!

NTL+Chorus are under major competitive pressure from Sky, who offer more channels, better Picture Quality, better reliabilty, interactivity and the Sky+ PVR service. And next year Sky will be launching High Definition channels.

Chorus in particular is losing customers at a very high rate to Sky.

In the future NTL+Chorus will also come under pressure from Digital FreeSat and Digital Terestial Transmitting and in the longer term mayb even IPTV services.

So I don't expect ESB style price rises, NTL don't operate in a vacuum, people do have other choices.

Marcopolo85

bk wrote:

NTL+Chorus are under major competitive pressure from Sky, who offer more channels, better Picture Quality, better reliabilty, interactivity and the Sky+ PVR service. And next year Sky will be launching High Definition channels.

Chorus in particular is losing customers at a very high rate to Sky.

In the future NTL+Chorus will also come under pressure from Digital FreeSat and Digital Terestial Transmitting and in the longer term mayb even IPTV services.

So I don't expect ESB style price rises, NTL don't operate in a vacuum, people do have other choices.

Just like to point out one thing: Sky cover the whole island and have 300,000 customers approximately. That's a penetration of roughly 25%. NTL have approximately 340,000 homes connected, with about 100,000 digital customers - that's a penetration of just under 30%. So each, in their own domain, are neck and neck.....Sky aren't as far ahead as some contributors point out.

There are a lot of people who can't wait to see NTL or Chorus succumb. That, if it ever happens, will be a very black day for Irish consumers. While NTL/chorus are not perfect they are, nevertheless, (at least in NTL's case) providing an extremely cheap and attractive alternative to Sky. And not just cheap in terms of monthly fees......they're streets ahead when it comes to chraging (or not charging) for backup.

causal

If your figures are accurate then Sky and NTL percentage take up is similar; but Sky are way ahead in terms of actual numbers - 300,000 against 100,000 - using your figures.

And who are the idiots that want to see NTL/Chorus succumb? (Apart from Sky*) Speak up and let your arguments be known if ye are out there?

causal

*Remember in the Terminator films - Skynet is the name of the computer network that took over Earth!!! "NTL be back!" :cool:

Marcopolo85

causal wrote:

If your figures are accurate then Sky and NTL percentage take up is similar; but Sky are way ahead in terms of actual numbers - 300,000 against 100,000 - using your figures.

And who are the idiots that want to see NTL/Chorus succumb? (Apart from Sky*) Speak up and let your arguments be known if ye are out there?

causal

*Remember in the Terminator films - Skynet is the name of the computer network that took over Earth!!! "NTL be back!" :cool:

I see where you're coming from. I was just pointing out that, in their respective patches (remember NTL does not have a nationwide footprint) the performance is similar, with NTL slightly ahead. There is no questioning that (technically at least) the Sky system does have the edge.....but how many people actually know how to use the 'bells & whistles' on the box?!

There was a dude with the username of 'a bientot' on the posts recently (I think his comments have since been removed) who appeared to actually relish the prospect of people in Chorus or NTL losing their jobs.