Virgin Media piles Cable and Wireless sandbags
Huffy manoeuvres
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Virgin Media attempted to win back some shareholder and media confidence late yesterday, by announcing a deal with Cable and Wireless to offer LLU ADSL for areas outside its cable network.
Virgin already has some ADSL customers off its own network, but an LLU(Local Loop Unbundling) deal is key to delivering a bundle at a price similar to cable. Virgin told The Reg that the deal won't be ready to offer access until the fourth quarter of this year.
In a regulatory filing in the US, also yesterday, Virgin said it had reduced the size of its board, burning one of the three seats controlled by William Huff, amid rumours of a power struggle between him and other large shareholders. The move resulted from a shareholder meeting in New York yesterday, where concerns that Huff held too much sway over the board were aired.
Huff, who holds under six per cent of Virgin Media, was the driving force behind the merger of NTL and Telewest last year. Huff now controls two seats, and Branson's 11 per cent stake one seat. Franklin Resources, the second largest investor, has no board member.
The Cable and Wireless deal has been bubbling for a while, but Virgin has had a tough couple of weeks, delivering poor results, being summoned by its largest sharholders, and generally taking a kicking in the press.
Virgin hopes that the tie-up, which runs until 2011, will help it retain customers when they move house off the cable network. Virgin has previously said it hopes to roll out IPTV to its Off-net customers so it can offer the full quad play of broadband, mobile, fixed line, and pay-TV to everyone. ®
COMMENTS
Comment On Wayleave!!
May I suggest you find out the full facts about what the issue actually is with wayleave that your friend is having.
It has nothing to do with someone else having cable in one of the flats in the property, its because the place your friend has moved into is owned by a housing association which is classed as a private landlord, therefore unless they was an active account with a previous customer before you friend moved in they MUST get permission from the landlord before they can cable its a legal requirement!
Thats why they write to the landlord to request permission, if they dont get a reply or its refused they cant go ahead and install the cables. If they do reply and give permission to cable then they can do...
That was the explanation i was given when i had the same issue with cable about 3 years ago, it was sorted like only a few weeks and my housing association have permission!!!!!!
Congratulations, Virgin! You just lost another customer.
A friend of mine, who was a Virgin user (originally NTL), just moved house.
Her new place is not too far from the old one, and in a cable area, but they could (would?) not connect her. Some fatuous argument between Virgin and the housing association about wayleave (the grant of right to lay cable on a property). Totally irrelevant as one of the other flats in the place is already cabled.
So, she now has a BT phone and a Freeview box, and is checking out the options from various ADSL providers.
Haven't Virgin twigged that if you market a service you then have to follow through and provide it?
Me, I'll stay with Virgin for the time being, just to see what happens. But there is a BT line here that could be reactivated, and a TV aerial on the roof.
Take A Leaf Out Of Frances Book...
One thing that has made me laugh is the comment of Virgin Media being able to offer the same priced services as cable?!
What, Why? Cable is already over priced and compared to the rest of Europe we pay way over the odds for a lesser service. UK £37 for 20MB shaped, France 20MB, 200 TV channels, and Unlimited Calls all through one small box for around £20, the same services on cable would cost you a bomb...
Maybe what needs to be done with Virgin Media first is to focus on the cable network to provide more competitive, reliable, and Unique services like france at a similar price with plenty of investment into the network and abolish traffic shaping then maybe they will see more customers stay and join and make their shareholder happy rather than peeing everyone off!!!!!!!
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