NTL Incorporated
Products | Cable television Broadband Telephone Mobile phone |
---|---|
Revenue | $6.10 billion (2005) |
Number of employees | 22,500 (2005) |
Website | (Via Wayback Machine) ntl.com |
NTL Incorporated, branded as ntl:, was a United States-listed British company founded in 1992, which provided cable television, cable internet and fixed-line cable telephone services. While NTL had its headquarters in New York City, the company's activities focused heavily on the United Kingdom, with operational headquarters in Hook, Hampshire.
NTL became the dominant cable operator in the United Kingdom, controlling more than 90% of the market.[citation needed] In 2005 residential services generated 78% of NTL's revenue, and business services 22%.
In March 2006, NTL merged with fellow
History
1992–2006
Barclay Knapp and George Blumenthal, the founders of American cellular network company Cellular Communications, Inc. (sold to Airtouch in 1996), established International CableTel in 1993 to take advantage of the deregulation of the UK cable market. Initially, Cabletel acquired local cable franchises covering Guildford and parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In 1996 CableTel acquired National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), the privatised UK Independent Broadcasting Authority transmission-network. In May 1998 CableTel adopted "NTL" as its new name.
The company spent heavily: both on expanding its network and on acquiring rivals (in 1999, it acquired Cambridge Cable, one of the earliest digital networks, that had been installed across the university city ten years earlier). In July 1999, NTL purchased the consumer assets of Cable & Wireless plc for nearly £8.2 billion, integrating the telephone, internet and television operations of Cable & Wireless into its own ever-expanding operation. [1] [2]
After exiting from Chapter 11 protection NTL produced an operating profit. In 2004, it announced plans to split the broadcasting division off from the main company. In December 2004, NTL sold its broadcast-unit to a consortium led by
In late 2004, NTL purchased the remaining shares of the Internet service provider (ISP) virgin.net, originally a joint venture between NTL and Richard Branson's Virgin Group.[3]
By 2005, its UK network consisted of a 7,800 km
Despite
By July 2005, NTL had cut its debt to £1.445 billion with an operating cashflow of £178 million. The company had 3.2 million customers buying at least one service from them, with the 1.4 million subscribers to
Telewest
NTL/Telewest merger
From late 2003 discussions commenced on a merger between Telewest and NTL. Thanks to their geographically different areas, NTL and Telewest had co-operated previously, as in re-directing potential customers living outside their respective areas. On 3 October 2005, NTL announced a USD$6 billion purchase of Telewest, forming one of the largest media companies in the UK. The merger agreement as structured would have left NTL having to negotiate with BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, due to a change-of-ownership clause written into the agreement for UKTV, a joint venture with Telewest's Flextech content division. To prevent this, Telewest instead acquired NTL.
The parties completed the merger on 3 March 2006, making the merged company the UK's largest cable-provider, with more than 90% of the market. Once merged, the combined company renamed itself to ntl:Telewest,[4] with ex-NTL shareholders controlling 75% of the stock and ex-Telewest shareholders 25%. Nine of the eleven directors of the new board came from NTL and two from Telewest.
Virgin Mobile merger
In December 2005 NTL and Virgin Mobile announced that talks had taken place regarding a merger.
Virgin Mobile's independent directors rejected the original bid of £817 million ($1.4 billion), taking the view that NTL's bid "undervalued the business". Sir Richard Branson reportedly expressed confidence that a re-structured deal could go ahead, and in January 2006 NTL increased its offer to £961m (372p per share). On 4 April 2006, NTL Incorporated announced a £962.4m recommended offer for Virgin Mobile. According to reports, Branson accepted a mix of shares and cash, making him a 10.7% shareholder of the combined company.
The takeover, which was completed on 4 July 2006, created the UK's first '
Proposed ITV merger
In November 2006, NTL announced that it had approached commercial television broadcaster
Services
Internet
NTL offered
In NTL areas customers could also access a 512 kbit/s download-speed; and both NTL and Telewest offer
The broadband services did not have a bandwidth-cap or a fair-usage policy; this means that customers have unlimited usage and need pay no extra charges related to the amount of data downloaded. However NTL has admitted introducing traffic shaping.[9]
NTL started trialling 20 Mbit/s, and temporarily upgraded some 10 Mbit/s subscribers to this speed in October 2006.[10] Furthermore, NTL started conducting trials of a 100Mbit broadband service on its cable network.[11][12]
After trials in the Guildford area from mid-1999, NTL launched its original broadband services at the same time that NTL acquired the Cable business of Cable and Wireless (early 2000). In the "original NTL" (also known as "Langley") areas, NTL has always supplied broadband services via DOCSIS cable-modems. In these areas the digital television set-top boxes used an incompatible standard, DAVIC.
Initially, NTL decided to terminate service to approximately 90,000 ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers on short notice.[13] This threatened to leave customers stranded and without access to their email or websites and was due to NTL's lack of infrastructure capability in some areas. Before termination of services, Boltblue struck a deal with NTL and Cable and Wireless Communications to save 90,000 [14] and later an additional 210,000 customers. The roll-out of broadband services in the ex-Cable and Wireless franchises started in mid 2001.
NTL provided ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers with broadband through the set-top box (STB) also used for
Firstly, large numbers of connections (for example, those with peer-to-peer (P2P) software) would cause the connection to slow down and eventually freeze the modem part of the STB (also required for interactive TV services, which suffered a similar effect when downloading). Customers in these circumstances had to re-boot the STB.
Secondly, the single processor and sharing the internal modem between television and broadband services made the television part of the box slow and unresponsive, for example making it extremely difficult to change channel using the remote. This became particularly evident when using the lower "Tiers of Service" such the 128 kbit/s downstream 64 kbit/s upstream, as the digital television set-top box without broadband service actually enjoyed a 256 kbit/s upstream.
Although capable of higher speeds (up to 4 Mbit/s), NTL did not make speeds higher than 1 Mbit/s available due to degradation of the DTV service.
NTL eventually replaced the Pace set-top boxes with Samsung models that used a dual-processor architecture, overcoming the shortcomings of the Pace, and capable of much better downstream performance. However, with the advent of higher "Tiers of Service" of 10 Mbit/s downstream and higher, plus the reducing cost of NTL's cable modems (supplied by Ambit Broadband) NTL now supplies all subscribers with cable modems.
The NTL network runs through transparent proxy servers. Up to 15 server addresses host each area. These transparent proxy servers also override the user's
NTL has used MAC addresses to track and register customers to the NTL internet service. As NTL had not supported the use of routers, or Xbox on the minority Set Top Box based Broadband Internet service, users had to use a clone MAC address feature to connect to the Internet when using an STB. This has become a common problem for people wishing to connect their Xbox to the existing internet connection through a router or PC connected to their STB, if they fail to use the official registration process. (These comments do not apply to the majority (>90%) use of cable modems).
Television
The digital television service offered a number of different products including true
PVR and high definition services
NTL launched
Video on demand
NTL started to roll out its
Fixed-line telephone
NTL also provided telephone services to its customers, as the second-largest[clarification needed] fixed-line telephony provider in the UK, behind BT, who until 1984 held the monopoly on fixed-line telephony services in the UK. In 2003, revenue from mobile lines became greater than the fixed-line telephone revenue.[16]
Premium TV
Premium TV was a subsidiary of NTL. It purchased stakes in Rangers F.C.,[17] Celtic F.C., Aston Villa F.C., Middlesbrough F.C.,[18] Newcastle United F.C. and Leicester City F.C.[19] The investments included interest free loans to the clubs to act as their exclusive agent for the sale of media sponsorship, advertising and publishing rights across all media platforms, including ownership of the clubs live television and radio rights.[20][21]
Premium TV operated and fully funded Boro TV for Middlesbrough F.C. from February 1998.[22] Boro TV Extra was added in August 2001, taking advantage of the relaxation in the TV rights regulations.[23] Both channels were closed in July 2005 after NTL withdrew funding.[24]
On 14 June 2000, NTL won the rights to show 40 live Premier League matches on a pay-per-view basis for three years, beginning at the start of the 2001–02 season. NTL would pay approximately £109 million per annum for the rights. NTL pulled out of the deal on 18 October 2000, claiming that it was "unable to agree final terms".[25] The failure to complete the deal, led to a lack of confidence in their proposed 2005 joint bid with ITV plc.[26]
On 19 June 2000, NTL entered into a joint venture with
NTL, through Premium TV, launched the ITN News Channel, a joint venture with ITN, on 1 August 2000.[31] In June 2002, Carlton Television and Granada Television – the predecessors of ITV plc – bought out ITN's 65-per-cent stake. This led to a rebrand as the ITV News Channel in September 2002. In April 2004 the newly created ITV plc bought NTL's remaining 35-per-cent stake to assume full control of the channel.[32]
Premium TV also oversaw NTL's 49-per-cent share in pay-per-view movie service Front Row, in joint venture with Telewest and NTL's 48.1-per-cent stake in interactive television technology and games firm, Two Way TV.[33]
Premium TV also operated Lions TV between June and August 2001, covering
Premium TV also provided the funds to create programming specifically for the UK feed (British Eurosport) of the pan-European channel Eurosport. It did not have a stake in the sports channel, but got a share of revenue.[36]
Premium TV planned to launch a live sports channel in September 2001 called British Sport, which would have combined archive footage from the BBC with live coverage of rugby union, basketball and ice hockey. Premium TV dropped its plans after realising it could not compete with other sports broadcasters, such as ITV and BSkyB. Instead Premium TV chose to launch a channel with the working title of Classic Sport, offering classic BBC sports footage from the
Premium TV was spun-out of NTL's UK cable operations and into NTL Europe Inc. in 2002, as part of a rescue plan devised by Barclay Knapp. Premium TV was placed under the control of the crisis and turnaround advisory group, Quest Turnaround Advisors. Quest negotiated commercial contracts with joint venture partners to eliminate £43 million of parent company guarantees and generated $10 million cash through restructuring. At the same time, Quest doubled paid subscribers to 75,000, cut staff by 50-per-cent, and broke even within 15 months of taking control. The business was then sold for $54 million to Access Industries, who merged it with Inform Group in 2007 to create Perform.[40][41]
Broadcasting
In February 2001, NTL and
References
- ^ "NTL Spends £8.2bn On Cable & Wireless Communications". The Media Leader. 26 July 1999. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
- ^ Bannister, Nicholas (27 July 1999). "NTL buys CWC for £8.17bn". The Guardian. Retrieved 14 March 2023.
- ^ "NTL takes control of Virgin Net". BBC News. 28 September 2004. Retrieved 7 December 2006.
- ^ "Company history – ntl:Telewest Business timeline". Archived from the original on 31 December 2011. Retrieved 28 October 2011.
- ^ Welsh, James (17 November 2006). "Sky buys 17.9% of ITV". Digital Spy. Retrieved 6 December 2006.
- ^ Wilkes, Neil (20 November 2006). "Sky/ITV: Branson statement in full". Digital Spy. Retrieved 6 December 2006.
- ^ Welsh, James (21 November 2006). "Ofcom examines impact of Sky's ITV stake". Digital Spy. Retrieved 6 December 2006.
- ^ Oatts, Joanne (6 December 2006). "NTL complains about Sky as it drops plans for ITV Ofcom". Digital Spy. Retrieved 6 December 2006.
- ^ "ntl:Telewest admits traffic shaping on its network". Cable Forum. 4 October 2006. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
- ^ "Have NTL Upgraded 10MB ?". Digital Spy Forums. 19 October 2006. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
- ^ "Telecompaper". www.telecompaper.com.
- ^ Walker, Dave (13 February 2006). "NTL trials 100MB service". Tech Digest. Retrieved 3 August 2013.
- ^ "NTL pulls the plug on CWC internet users". ZDNet. 17 October 2001. Retrieved 30 October 2013.
- ^ Welsh, James (22 November 2001). "Boltblue to take on non-cabled customers". Digital Spy. Retrieved 30 October 2013.
- ^ "ntl customers to experience high definition TV" (Press release). NTL. 16 November 2006. Retrieved 7 December 2006.
- ^ "NTL seeking power of Virgin brand". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 10 December 2022. Retrieved 6 March 2020.
- ^ City, Our (14 June 2000). "NTL signs Glasgow Rangers for £31m". The Independent. London. Retrieved 23 December 2009.[dead link]
- ^ "NTL takes stake in Middlesbrough". Broadcastnow. 28 March 2000.
- ^ "NTL announces media partnership and loan agreement with Leicester City FC worth £12.5 million". Virgin Media: Press Office. 8 June 2000. Retrieved 23 December 2009.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Cassy, John (26 January 2000). "NTL's stake in Villa opens way to bid for live football". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ Gibson, Owen (22 October 2003). "Newcastle rewrites Premium TV deal". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ "Boro TV faces closure". Broadcastnow. 4 July 2005.
- ^ "Boro first to take advantage of new TV rights regulations". SportBusiness. 1 August 2001.
- ^ "Boro television channel to close". BBC Sport. 1 July 2005.
- ^ "Negotiations between NTL and the FA Premier League for pay-per-view rights cease". NTL. 18 October 2000.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Harris, Nick; Shah, Saeed (18 October 2000). "Premier League chairmen dismiss ITV/NTL proposal". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 13 September 2009. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ "NTL wins Internet rights for Football League". Virgin Media. 19 June 2000.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Gibson, Owen (14 March 2002). "Flextech sales arm goes it alone". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ Gibson, Owen (27 September 2002). "Clubs forced into cut-price web deal". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ "League play down internet deal fears". The Guardian. London. 12 March 2003. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ "ITN to launch news channel with ntl". Press Gazette. 28 June 2000.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "ITV buys out NTL to take control of News Channel". Press Gazette. 30 April 2004.
- ^ "Two Way Media (formerly Two Way TV) (2003–2004)". Quest Turnaround Advisors. Archived from the original on 10 November 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2009.
- ^ "Lions TV available on ntl digitalplus". Digital Spy. 29 May 2001.
- ^ "NTL lines up with the biggest sporting event of next summer". Virgin Media. 15 December 2000.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "More than a road digger?". Broadcastnow. 21 March 2001.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Milmo, Dan (8 November 2001). "BBC opens sports archives in cable deal". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ Milmo, Dan (19 December 2001). "Classic Sport channel shelved". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 27 May 2010.
- ^ Harris, Nick (10 October 2002). "Ice Hockey: Fans hold the key for a game on the slide". The Independent. London. Retrieved 27 May 2010.[dead link]
- ^ "Football crazy". Broadband TV News. 6 October 2009.
- ^ "PTV, Inc. (formerly NTL Incorporated) (2003–2008)". Quest Turnaround Advisors. Archived from the original on 10 November 2010. Retrieved 26 December 2009.
- ^ Milmo, Dan (18 December 2002). "NTL/Vivendi movie channel closes". The Guardian. Retrieved 10 June 2012.