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Telewest Broadband UK
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Telewest (formerly Telewest Broadband and Telewest
Communications) is a trading name of NTL
Incorporated, the dominant cable operator in the
United Kingdom with more than 90% of the market.
The merger of Telewest and NTL's UK businesses was
completed on March 3, 2006. NTL trading as
Telewest passes approximately 4.2 million homes.
In recent years Telewest has progressed through a
lot of financial problems due to the huge debts it
incurred as a result of constructing its cable
network, and acquiring other cable companies and
assets. In 2004 Telewest re-structured itself by
swapping its unsecured debt for 98.5% of its
shares. Shares were then consolidated and delisted
from the London FTSE. Major Telewest shareholders
included Huff and Liberty Media (run by cable
tycoon John Malone). Since then, the company has
emerged from financial restructuring and completed
a merger with larger rival NTL. See Company
Background below for full details.
Residential Services
On its cable network, Telewest provides several
residential services including:
Television
The majority of Telewest's television is now
digital. However, there are still areas that
receive an analogue service (Slough, Windsor and
some other areas in West London). Telewest is in
the process of converting the remaining analogue
areas to digital and it is expected that the
analogue service will cease in 2007.
The digital television service offers a number of
different products including true video on demand,
a PVR, and HDTV.
Teleport: Teleport is the brand name for
Telewest's video on demand (VOD) service. The
Teleport service launched in 2005. In contrast to
Sky Digital which, due to technical limitations,
is only able to provide near-VOD services,
Teleport is a true VoD system. Users can search
through a large library of programmes and watch
them when they want to as part of their
subscription. This library includes a free 7-day
watch again feature for TV programmes produced
wholly by the BBC and Flextech. Teleport also
offers movies that can be purchased and watched as
many times as desired within a twenty four hour
period. Teleport also offers HD content that will
work in conjunction with the TVDrive PVR.
HDTV Telewest was the first UK broadcaster to
offer HDTV. Contrary to popular belief, Telewest's
HDTV service launched several months earlier than
that of their chief competitor, Sky Digital.
Telewests HD service is priced significantly lower
than Sky's. Sky charge a £300 setup fee and an
additional £10 / month. Telewest charge a £50
setup fee and £10 month. Telewest's fee's however
include the TV Drive service, whereas the Sky HD
service does not include their Sky+ charges. In
January 2006 they started to broadcast HD
documentaries such as "The Blue Planet", "Planet
Earth", and "Pride" through their Teleport
service, and now broadcast some movies in HD.
Telewest had an agreement with both ITV and the
BBC and claimed to be the only provider in the UK
to offer all the World Cup matches in HD. In
reality however half of the final group stage
matches were not available in HD. Since the world
cup there have been no new HD channels added to
the lineup. This means that Telewest customers are
missing out on Sky One HD, Sky Sports HD, Sky
Movies HD, Discovery HD and National Geographic
HD. Telewest's HD service is provided exclusively
through their TV Drive box.
TV Drive: Is the name of Telewest's Digital Video
Recorder (PVR) service. TV Drive product
incorporates a 160 gigabyte hard drive as
standard, meaning it is able to store around 80
hours of recorded programmes. This is in contrast
to BSkyB's Sky+ service which currently offers
only 80 gigabytes (40 hours) as standard, with a
160 gigabyte drive available at a significant
premium. Similarly, Telewest's product
incorporates three tuners while Sky's incorporates
only two, meaning that Telewest's service can
record two channels at the same time while
watching a third.
Internet
Telewest's broadband service, Blueyonder (formerly
Cable Internet), offers speeds of 2 Mbit/s, 4 Mbit/s
and 10 Mbit/s. The prices range from around £14.99
per month to £35 per month. The broadband service
is currently 'uncapped', meaning that usage is
unlimited and no extra charges are payable related
to the amount of data downloaded.
Although, Sky have recently started to offer
broadband packages ranging from free to £10.00pcm,
these packages are only available to those who
subscribe to Sky's television packages, the
cheapest of which is £15pcm. In comparison, to get
Telewest broadband you do not need to subscribe to
a television package.
Blueyonder also provides dial-up internet services
on a pay as you go, or fixed monthly fee of £14.99
for unlimited usage.
Telephone
Talk Unlimited (£25.50 Inclusive of Line Rental)
Talk Evenings and Weekends (£16.50 Inclusive of
Line Rental)
Talk Weekends (£11.00 Line Rental charge, for all
customers)
Providing UK landline calls for upto an hour for a
fixed fee monthly inclusive of line rental.
Telewest were the first UK landline company to
offer 'unlimited' calls to landlines for a fixed
monthly fee.
Talk Mobile (£1.50 Additional)
UK mobile calls with 25% reduction from standard
rates.
Talk International (£3 Additional)
Similar principle to Talk Mobile, with different
reductions to different countries.
Talk Anywhere
200 Minutes (£20.00 Inclusive of Line Rental) 400
Minutes (£27.00 Inclusive of Line Rental) 800
Minutes (£40.00 Inclusive of Line Rental)
Telewest are the first landline company to offer a
package of this kind as it includes bundled
minutes every month that can be carried over to
the next. Including UK Mobiles, Landlines,
Businesses with 0845 and 0870 International
Mobiles & Landlines. Available nationally, varying
in price depending on number of minutes.
Telewest Broadband - Broadband Elite
Ultra fast up to 10Mb speed. No usage limit which
means no running out of downloads for photos or
software. Includes PC internet security - PCguard°
Telewest Broadband - 2MB Broadband
With this package get up to 2Mb speed with no
usage limit, which means no running out of
downloads for photos or software. Includes PC
internet security - PCguard°
Telewest Broadband - Broadband Complete
Surf even faster with Telewest. Get up to 4Mb
speed with no usage limit, which means no running
out of downloads for photos or software. Includes
PC internet security - PCguard° |
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