NTL

This article discusses the cable-provider NTL Incorporated. For other uses of NTL see NTL (disambiguation)

NTL Incorporated, was a U.S.

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

company, that became the first "quadruple-play"

Quadruple play

In telecommunications, quadruple play is a marketing term combining the triple play service of broadband Internet access, television and telephone with wireless service provisions...

media-company in the UK, bringing together television

Television

Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...

, Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

, mobile phone

Mobile phone

A mobile phone is a device which can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile network operator...

and fixed-line telephone

Telephone

The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other...

services. While NTL has its headquarters in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, the company's activities focus heavily on the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

, with operational headquarters in Hook, Hampshire

Hook, North Hampshire

Hook is a large village within the Hart district of northern Hampshire, England. It is situated east of Basingstoke and northeast of Southampton, on the A30 national route, just north of Junction 5 of the M3 motorway....

. In late 2008, NTL announced it would rebrand as Virgin Media

Virgin Media

Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...

.

NTL became the dominant cable operator in the United Kingdom, controlling more than 90% of the market. The company formed as the result of the 2006 merger of the UK's two major cable services companies, NTL Holdings and Telewest Global

Telewest

Telewest, formerly Telewest Broadband and Telewest Communications was a cable Internet, broadband internet, telephone supplier and cable television provider in the United Kingdom...

. NTL also owned mobile operator Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile

Virgin Mobile is a brand used by many mobile phone service providers across the globe; its headquarters are based in the United Kingdom. Virgin Mobile has local operations in Australia, Canada, France, India, South Africa, Greece, United Kingdom and the United States. It briefly also had operations...

and Virgin.net

Virgin.net

Virgin.net was an Internet service provider operating in the United Kingdom. It launched in November 1996. Once a joint venture between NTL and the Virgin Group, the ISP became wholly owned by NTL in 2004....

, which supplies Internet services in non-cabled areas via ADSL and dial-up

Dial-up access

Dial-up Internet access is a form of Internet access that uses the facilities of the public switched telephone network to establish a dialled connection to an Internet service provider via telephone lines...

. NTL also produced content through its Flextech

Flextech

Living TV Group was a British television content subsidiary of British Sky Broadcasting. It is now defunct as a company but Sky Living, Sky Livingit, Sky Living Loves and Challenge are still in operation by BSkyB.-Overview:...

subsidiary. In 2005 residential services generated 78% of NTL's revenue, and business

Business

A business is an organization engaged in the trade of goods, services, or both to consumers. Businesses are predominant in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and administered to earn profit to increase the wealth of their owners. Businesses may also be not-for-profit...

services 22%.

Barclay Knapp

Barclay Knapp is a Senior Fellow in the Center for Financial Economics at The Johns Hopkins University, and has formed Charles Street Partners, to pursue financing and management opportunities in the telecommunications industry....

and George Blumenthal

George Blumenthal

George R. Blumenthal is an American astrophysicist, astronomer, professor, and academic administrator. He is the tenth chancellor of the University of California, Santa Cruz.-Biography:...

, the founders of the cellular network company Cellular Communications, Inc. (sold to Airtouch

AirTouch

AirTouch Communications was a U.S.-based wireless telephone service provider, created as a spin-off on Pacific Telesis on April 1, 1994. Its headquarters were in One California in the Financial District, San Francisco, California...

in 1996), established International CableTel in 1993. They founded CableTel in order to take advantage of the deregulation

Deregulation

Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or simplification of government rules and regulations that constrain the operation of market forces.Deregulation is the removal or...

of the UK cable market. Initially, Cabletel acquired local cable franchises covering Guildford

Guildford

Guildford is the county town of Surrey. England, as well as the seat for the borough of Guildford and the administrative headquarters of the South East England region...

and parts of Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland

Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...

, Scotland

Scotland

Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...

and Wales

Wales

Wales is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain, bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km²...

. In 1996 CableTel acquired National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), the privatised UK Independent Broadcasting Authority

Independent Broadcasting Authority

The Independent Broadcasting Authority was the regulatory body in the United Kingdom for commercial television - and commercial/independent radio broadcasts...

transmission-network. In 1998 CableTel adopted "NTL" as its new name.

The company spent heavily: both on expanding its network and on acquiring rivals. The company also began to expand outside the UK in 2000, buying into markets on continental Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

and in Ireland

Republic of Ireland

Ireland , described as the Republic of Ireland , is a sovereign state in Europe occupying approximately five-sixths of the island of the same name. Its capital is Dublin. Ireland, which had a population of 4.58 million in 2011, is a constitutional republic governed as a parliamentary democracy,...

.

A collapse of the telecommunications markets from mid-2000 dealt a serious blow to the company. This, combined with NTL's rapid acquisition of local cable-operators, led to severe integration problems. NTL, struggling to cope with rapid expansion and suffering from significant customer-service

Customer service

Customer service is the provision of service to customers before, during and after a purchase.According to Turban et al. , “Customer service is a series of activities designed to enhance the level of customer satisfaction – that is, the feeling that a product or service has met the customer...

problems, then had to contend with the setting up in November 2002 of one of the UK's first consumer lobby-groups, nthellworld

Nthellworld

nthellworld was one of the first mainstream independent consumer lobby groups in the United Kingdom, whose main focal point was British ISP and Cable television company ntl Group...

, with ntl:hell following shortly after. As a complementary move, a team of NTL employees founded www.chetnet.co.uk to provide customers with a site focused on providing expert advice on its subject-matter, based on factual information, without the emotion or speculation of the "lobby groups".

Devalued and struggling with debts of around $18bn, NTL had to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection in May 2002 in order to organise a refinancing deal. The company did not emerge from protection until January 2003, having converted around $11bn of debt into shares — technically, this amounted to the largest debt default

Default (finance)

In finance, default occurs when a debtor has not met his or her legal obligations according to the debt contract, e.g. has not made a scheduled payment, or has violated a loan covenant of the debt contract. A default is the failure to pay back a loan. Default may occur if the debtor is either...

in US corporate history. The company reduced its debt to $6.4bn. A re-organisation split NTL itself into NTL Inc. (covering the UK and Irish markets) and NTL Europe Inc. (for the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, Swiss

Switzerland

Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

and German

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

parts of the corporation). New executives replaced the NTL president, CEO and co-founder Barclay Knapp, as well as Stephen Carter

Stephen Carter

Stephen Carter may refer to:*Stephen L. Carter , American law professor and writer*Stephen Carter, Baron Carter of Barnes , UK Government Communications, Technology and Broadcasting minister...

, the MD and COO

Chief operating officer

A Chief Operating Officer or Director of Operations can be one of the highest-ranking executives in an organization and comprises part of the "C-Suite"...

.

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 Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group (MCG) for £1.27 billion. (Macquarie renamed the division Arqiva

Arqiva

Arqiva is a telecommunications company which provides infrastructure and broadcast transmission facilities in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland. The present company, with headquarters located at Crawley Court in the village of Crawley, Hampshire, was formed by National Grid Wireless...

in May 2005.) This sale allowed NTL to focus on its "core businesses" of providing communications packages and cable services.

In Autumn 2004, NTL purchased the remaining shares of the Internet service provider

Internet service provider

An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...

(ISP) virgin.net

Virgin.net

, originally a joint venture between NTL and Sir Richard Branson

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....

's Virgin Group

Virgin Group

Virgin Group Limited is a British branded venture capital conglomerate organisation founded by business tycoon Richard Branson. The core business areas are travel, entertainment and lifestyle. Virgin Group's date of incorporation is listed as 1989 by Companies House, who class it as a holding...

By 2005 its UK network consisted of a 7,800 km fibre

Optical fiber

An optical fiber is a flexible, transparent fiber made of a pure glass not much wider than a human hair. It functions as a waveguide, or "light pipe", to transmit light between the two ends of the fiber. The field of applied science and engineering concerned with the design and application of...

backbone

Backbone network

A backbone network or network backbone is a part of computer network infrastructure that interconnects various pieces of network, providing a path for the exchange of information between different LANs or subnetworks. A backbone can tie together diverse networks in the same building, in different...

with the potential to reach 8.4 million residential homes and around 610,000 businesses. In January of that year, NTL started rolling out Video On Demand

Video on demand

Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...

. With content selected by NTL, this service covers genres including music videos, children's programming and adult entertainment. This provides an extension to the basic 'pay per view' services the company offered for film and sport content. The new service allows customers to rewind, fast forward and pause content.

Despite NTL Ireland

NTL Ireland

NTL Communications Limited was a cable television and Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service company in the Republic of Ireland. As of 2005 it was owned by Liberty Global Europe , having been divested by NTL...

turning a profit, in May 2005, NTL sold their Dublin, Galway

Galway

Galway or City of Galway is a city in County Galway, Republic of Ireland. It is the sixth largest and the fastest-growing city in Ireland. It is also the third largest city within the Republic and the only city in the Province of Connacht. Located on the west coast of Ireland, it sits on the...

, and Waterford

Waterford

Waterford is a city in the South-East Region of Ireland. It is the oldest city in the country and fifth largest by population. Waterford City Council is the local government authority for the city and its immediate hinterland...

cable business (which they had acquired in 1999 for €825 million from the Irish government) to UGC Europe for €325 million — this after having spent in excess of €100 million on network infrastructure (i.e. making a gross loss of €500 million - more than 50% - over what they paid). As of September 2006 Liberty continues to use the NTL brand in Ireland, but analysts predict that UPC

UPC

-Companies:* United Pan-Europe Communications, a European provider of cable television, telephone and broadband content owned by Liberty Global-Technology:* Universal Product Code * Unified Parallel C* Uniform Plumbing Code* Uplink Power Control...

will eventually replace the branding.

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 broadband

Broadband Internet access

Broadband Internet access, often shortened to just "broadband", is a high data rate, low-latency connection to the Internet— typically contrasted with dial-up access using a 56 kbit/s modem or satellite Internet with inherently high latency....

services making NTL the market leader in this field.

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$

United States dollar

The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....

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

BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide Limited is the wholly owned commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, formed out of a restructuring of its predecessor BBC Enterprises in 1995. In the year to 31 March 2010 it made a profit of £145m on a turnover of £1.074bn. The company had made a profit of £106m...

, the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

's commercial arm, due to a change-of-ownership clause written into the agreement for UKTV

UKTV

UKTV is a digital cable and satellite television network, formed through a joint venture between BBC Worldwide, a commercial subsidiary of the British Broadcasting Corporation, and Scripps Networks Interactive, spun off from The E.W Scripps Company in 2008...

, a joint venture with Telewest's Flextech

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, 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

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

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....

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 completed on 4 July 2006 creating the UK's first 'quadruple play

Quadruple play

In telecommunications, quadruple play is a marketing term combining the triple play service of broadband Internet access, television and telephone with wireless service provisions...

' media company, bringing together television, Internet broadband, mobile-phone and fixed-line phone services. The deal included a 30-year exclusive branding agreement that will see NTL adopt the Virgin name across its consumer operations as it merges operations with its current Telewest brand. As a result, on 8 November 2006, NTL announced it would change its name to Virgin Media Plc

Virgin Media Plc

Virgin Media Inc. is a company which provides fixed and mobile telephone, television and broadband internet services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom...

Rumoured private equity bid

On 16 August 2006, The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

reported that the NTL Incorporated group could become the subject of a £10bn-takeover-bid from a private-equity

Private equity

Private equity, in finance, is an asset class consisting of equity securities in operating companies that are not publicly traded on a stock exchange....

firm consortium

Consortium

A consortium is an association of two or more individuals, companies, organizations or governments with the objective of participating in a common activity or pooling their resources for achieving a common goal....

made up of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts

Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.

KKR & Co. L.P. is an American-based global private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts, based in New York. The firm sponsors and manages private equity investment funds. Since its inception, the firm has completed over $400 billion of private equity transactions and was a pioneer in...

, Bain

Bain Capital

Bain Capital LLC is a Boston-based private equity firm founded in 1984 by partners from the consulting firm Bain & Company. Originally conceived as an early-stage, growth-oriented investment fund, Bain Capital today manages approximately $65 billion in assets, and its strategies include private...

, Cinven

Cinven

Cinven is a British private equity firm founded in 1977 with offices in London, Paris, Frankfurt, Milan and Hong Kong. Currently, the company has raised four funds, with the last one signing up €6.5 billion...

, Blackstone

Blackstone Group

The Blackstone Group L.P. is an American-based alternative asset management and financial services company that specializes in private equity, real estate, and credit and marketable alternative investment strategies, as well as financial advisory services, such as mergers and acquisitions ,...

and Providence Private Equity with a formal approach expected within a fortnight. The £10bn figure would include £6bn worth of debt already on the NTL balance-sheet. Additional new banking facilities would probably fund the private-equity bid. As of January 2007 no such bid has materialised.

ITV merger

In November 2006, NTL announced that it had approached commercial television broadcaster ITV

ITV plc

ITV plc is a British media company that operates 12 of the 15 regional television broadcasters that make up the ITV Network, the oldest and largest commercial terrestrial television network in the United Kingdom...

about a proposed merger BSkyB

British Sky Broadcasting

British Sky Broadcasting Group plc is a satellite broadcasting, broadband and telephony services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom, with operations in the United Kingdom and the Ireland....

effectively blocked the merger on 12 November 2006, when it controversially bought a 17.9% stake in ITV plc , a move that attracted anger from NTL shareholder Richard Branson

Richard Branson

Sir Richard Charles Nicholas Branson is an English business magnate, best known for his Virgin Group of more than 400 companies....

and an investigation from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom

Ofcom

Ofcom is the government-approved regulatory authority for the broadcasting and telecommunications industries in the United Kingdom. Ofcom was initially established by the Office of Communications Act 2002. It received its full authority from the Communications Act 2003...

. On 6 December 2006, NTL announced that it had complained to the Office of Fair Trading

Office of Fair Trading

The Office of Fair Trading is a not-for-profit and non-ministerial government department of the United Kingdom, established by the Fair Trading Act 1973, which enforces both consumer protection and competition law, acting as the UK's economic regulator...

about BSkyB's move, and that it would withdraw its attempt to buy ITV plc, stating that it did not believe that it could currently make a deal on favourable terms.

Internet

NTL offered broadband Internet access

Broadband Internet access

connections through cable

Cable television

Cable television is a system of providing television programs to consumers via radio frequency signals transmitted to televisions through coaxial cables or digital light pulses through fixed optical fibers located on the subscriber's property, much like the over-the-air method used in traditional...

. The service operates through SACMs (Stand-alone cable modem

Cable modem

A cable modem is a type of network bridge and modem that provides bi-directional data communication via radio frequency channels on a HFC and RFoG infrastructure. Cable modems are primarily used to deliver broadband Internet access in the form of cable Internet, taking advantage of the high...

s) and set-top box

Set-top box

A set-top box or set-top unit is an information appliance device that generally contains a tuner and connects to a television set and an external source of signal, turning the signal into content which is then displayed on the television screen or other display device.-History:Before the...

es (STBs).

In NTL areas customers could also access a 512 kbit/s download-speed; and both NTL and Telewest offer dial-up Internet services on a pay-as-you-go basis, or at a fixed monthly fee of £14.99 for unlimited usage.

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

Traffic shaping

Traffic shaping is the control of computer network traffic in order to optimize or guarantee performance, improve latency, and/or increase usable bandwidth for some kinds of packets by delaying other kinds of packets that meet certain criteria...

.

NTL has started trialing 20 Mbit/s, and temporarily upgraded some 10 Mbit/s subscribers to this speed in October 2006.
The 20 Mbit/s service reportedly supports 768 kbit/s upstream, though some users have reported seeing upstream speeds of 1 Mbit/s . Furthermore, NTL has started conducting trials of a 100Mbit broadband service on its cable network.
After trials in the Guildford area from summer 1999, NTL launched its original broadband services at the same time that NTL acquired the Cable business of Cable and Wireless (spring 2000). In the "original NTL" (also known as "Langley") areas, NTL has always supplied broadband services via DOCSIS

DOCSIS

Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification is an international telecommunications standard that permits the addition of high-speed data transfer to an existing cable TV system...

cable-modems. In these areas the digital television set-top box

Set-top box

es used an incompatible standard, DAVIC

DAVIC

DAVIC, Digital Audio Video Council, was founded in 1994 with the aim of promoting the success of interactive digital audio-visual applications and services by promulgating specifications of open interfaces and protocols that maximise interoperability, not only across geographical boundaries but...

.

The roll-out of broadband services in the ex-Cable and Wireless franchises started in mid 2001. Initially, NTL provided ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers with broadband through the set-top box (STB) also used for digital television

Digital television

Digital television is the transmission of audio and video by digital signals, in contrast to the analog signals used by analog TV...

services, adopting the rationale that subscribers could self-install. Initially, NTL supplied a "Self Install Kit" consisting of connecting cable, adapters and an install CD. Following demonstrated problems, NTL gradually introduced cable modems and phased out the self-install approach,

The Pace STBs proved highly problematic, exhibiting two major flaws. Firstly, large numbers of connections (for example, those with peer-to-peer

Peer-to-peer

Peer-to-peer computing or networking is a distributed application architecture that partitions tasks or workloads among peers. Peers are equally privileged, equipotent participants in the application...

(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

Samsung

The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...

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.

A historical view of NTL cable modems appears online at the Chetnet site.

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 hosts file

Hosts file

The hosts file is a computer file used in an operating system to map hostnames to IP addresses. The hosts file is a plain-text file and is conventionally named hosts.-Purpose:...

and prevent manual DNS

Domain name system

The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...

updates. This makes it easier for NTL to provide a more reliable connection as well as being able to monitor traffic requirements in each area. This also causes many problems for websites which record IP addresses to ban and/or track users. This means that if a website bans one offender, it bans everyone in the same area. Also, many on-line games automatically ban IP addresses with multiple usernames associated with them. Small-scale games do not cause too many problems, but when friends attempt to spread the game around, the system prevents everyone (including the original player) from using the game.
On the other hand, advanced users can easily create a large number of illegitimate accounts on the aforementioned websites, allowing one user both to prevent all other users on the NTL network using the game, as well as to become untraceable.

Some of the STBs cannot support connection speeds above 1Mb. As many customers took up their connections before the system-wide upgrade from 1Mb to 2Mb basic rate, one commonly finds that people have paid for a 2Mb connection, whilst only having a 1Mb connection.

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 offers a number of different products including true video on demand

Video on demand

Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...

, a PVR

PVR

PVR may refer to:*Peak Vehicle Requirement, the number of public transport vehicles required to operate the highest frequency service on a route*Penn Virginia Resources, a mining company* Personal video recorder, also known as a digital video recorder...

, and HDTV. On 1 September 2006 NTL introduced the FreeTV digital package to its telephone subscribers free of charge. However, value-pack customers lose their value-pack discounts if they integrate the FreeTV deal into their existing packages.

PVR and High Definition services

NTL launched TV Drive

TV Drive

V+ is a set-top box for Virgin Media's Virgin TV service, which provides personal video recording and high definition functionality to customers who subscribe to the service. Virgin TV have taken a different approach to rival Sky's Sky+ HD service, by implementing a rental scheme for the V+ Box...

, its high-definition television (HDTV)

High-definition television

High-definition television is video that has resolution substantially higher than that of traditional television systems . HDTV has one or two million pixels per frame, roughly five times that of SD...

and Digital Video Recorder (PVR

PVR

) service in Glasgow

Glasgow

Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...

and Teesside

Teesside

Teesside is the name given to the conurbation in the north east of England made up of the towns of Middlesbrough, Stockton-on-Tees, Redcar, Billingham and surrounding settlements near the River Tees. It was also the name of a local government district between 1968 and 1974—the County Borough of...

on 16 November 2006.. The service relies on the service of the same name offered in NTL's Telewest areas. The service uses a new PVR set-top-box, with three tuners and a 160GB

Gigabyte

The gigabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information storage. The prefix giga means 109 in the International System of Units , therefore 1 gigabyte is...

hard disk

Hard disk

A hard disk drive is a non-volatile, random access digital magnetic data storage device. It features rotating rigid platters on a motor-driven spindle within a protective enclosure. Data is magnetically read from and written to the platter by read/write heads that float on a film of air above the...

for up to 80 hours recording. The presence of three tuners means that TV Drive can record two channels at the same time while watching a third. This contrasts with most other PVR systems such as Sky+

Sky+

Sky+, or Sky Plus, is a personal video recorder service for Sky in the UK. Launched in September 2001, it allows the user to record, pause and instantly rewind live TV. The system performs these functions using an internal hard drive inside the Sky+ set top box...

, which can only have two tuners. Ntl plans to have this service available in 12 million homes by early 2007.

Video on Demand

NTL has started to roll out its Video on Demand

Video on demand

Video on Demand or Audio and Video On Demand are systems which allow users to select and watch/listen to video or audio content on demand...

(VoD) service branded "NTL On Demand". NTL On Demand uses the Teleport system on Telewest's network. In contrast to Sky which, due to technical limitations, can only provide near-VOD services, NTL On Demand provides a true VoD system. The service allows customers of NTL Digital television to download programmes as and when they want to watch them from servers at the customer's local head-end

Head end

Head end may refer to:* A cable television headend, a master facility for receiving television signals for processing and distribution over a cable television system* gateway...

. As the broadcaster automatically stores content on NTL's servers, it removes the need to pre-record many programmes. 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 by the BBC

BBC

, Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

and Flextech

Flextech

. NTL also offers other television-shows, films (service branded FilmFlex

FilmFlex

FilmFlex, is a UK pay-per-view movie service, which is a joint venture between Sony and The Walt Disney Company.- Virgin Media :FilmFlex makes up part of Virgin Media's "On Demand" video on demand system. FilmFlex has been available on Virgin since January 2005 and saw over 11 million films watched...

), and music videos, mostly for an additional fee. The VoD service also provides HD content that will work in conjunction with the TV Drive PVR.

Fixed-line telephone

NTL also provides telephone services to its customers, as the second-largest fixed-line telephony provider in the UK, behind BT

BT Group

BT Group plc is a global telecommunications services company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is one of the largest telecommunications services companies in the world and has operations in more than 170 countries. Through its BT Global Services division it is a major supplier of...

, who until 1984 held the monopoly on fixed-line telephony services in the UK.

Premium TV

Premium TV was a subsidiary of NTL. It purchased stakes in Rangers F.C.

Rangers F.C.

Rangers Football Club are an association football club based in Glasgow, Scotland, who play in the Scottish Premier League. The club are nicknamed the Gers, Teddy Bears and the Light Blues, and the fans are known to each other as bluenoses...

, Celtic F.C.

Celtic F.C.

Celtic Football Club is a Scottish football club based in the Parkhead area of Glasgow, which currently plays in the Scottish Premier League. The club was established in 1887, and played its first game in 1888. Celtic have won the Scottish League Championship on 42 occasions, most recently in the...

, Aston Villa, Middlesbrough F.C.

Middlesbrough F.C.

Middlesbrough Football Club , also known as Boro, are an English football club based in Middlesbrough, who play in the Football League Championship. Formed in 1876, they have played at the Riverside Stadium since August 1995, their third ground since turning professional in 1889...

, Newcastle United and Leicester City F.C.

Leicester City F.C.

Leicester City Football Club , also known as The Foxes, is an English professional football club based at the King Power Stadium in Leicester...

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.

Premium TV operated and fully funded Boro TV for Middlesbrough F.C. from February 1998. Boro TV Extra was added in August 2001, taking advantage of the relaxation in the TV rights regulations. Both channels were closed in July 2005 after NTL withdrew funding.

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 2001/2 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". The failure to complete the deal, led to a lack of confidence in their proposed 2005 joint bid with ITV plc.

On 19 June 2000, NTL entered into a joint venture with The Football League

The Football League

The Football League, also known as the npower Football League for sponsorship reasons, is a league competition featuring professional association football clubs from England and Wales. Founded in 1888, it is the oldest such competition in world football...

to set up an internet portal for all 72 clubs. Under the terms of the deal, NTL would pay rights fees of up to £65 million over five years, with all participating clubs sharing in the profits of the joint venture, with a variable term in the region of 20 years. Premium TV was eventually able to set up 78 football club websites after adding it's partially owned clubs. The deal had with The Football League had to be renegotiated in September 2002 after NTL could no longer afford to pay its instalments. The League clubs would now receive £5m and an 80-per-cent share of all future revenue earned by the venture until the total amount reaches the original figure of £35m.

NTL, through Premium TV, launched the ITN News Channel

ITV News Channel

The ITV News Channel was a 24-hour television news channel in the United Kingdom which broadcast from 1 August 2000 to 23 December 2005. It was available on Sky, NTL:Telewest, Freeview and analogue cable, presenting national and international news plus regular business, sport, entertainment and...

, a joint venture with ITN, on 1 August 2000. 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.

In February 2001, Premium TV launched movie channel The Studio, as a 50:50 joint venture with Universal Studios Networks

NBC Universal

NBCUniversal Media, LLC is a media and entertainment company engaged in the production and marketing of entertainment, news, and information products and services to a global customer base...

which closed in 2002. 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.

Premium TV also operated Lions TV between June and August 2001, covering 2001 British Lions tour to Australia

2001 British Lions tour to Australia

The 2001 British and Irish Lions tour to Australia was a series of matches played by the British Lions rugby union team in Australia.This tour followed the Lions' 1997 tour to South Africa and preceded the 2005 tour to New Zealand....

. The channel showcased eight, one hour ‘behind the scenes' programmes to be made by Premium TV.

Premium TV also provided the funds to create programming specifically for the UK feed (British Eurosport) of the pan-European channel Eurosport

Eurosport

Eurosport is a pan-European television sport network operated by French broadcaster TF1 Group. The network of channels are available in 59 countries, in 20 different languages providing viewers with European and international sporting events...

. It did not have a stake in the sports channel, but got a share of revenue.

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 Grandstand

Grandstand (BBC)

Grandstand was a British television sport programme. Broadcast between 1958 and 2007, it was one of the BBC's longest running sports shows, alongside BBC Sports Personality of the Year.Its first presenter was Peter Dimmock...

archives, the channel never materialised. The Ice Hockey Superleague

Ice Hockey Superleague

The Ice Hockey Superleague was a professional ice hockey league in the United Kingdom between 1996 and 2003. Formed in 1995, it replaced the Premier Division of the British Hockey League, it was the highest level of ice hockey competition in the United Kingdom...

issued a high court writ claiming damages of up to £10m from the company, after its £1m-a-year TV deal was cancelled at short notice. The Superleague settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.

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 business for $54 million to Access Industries

Access Industries

Access Industries is a privately held, U.S.-based industrial group founded in 1986 by its chairman, Len Blavatnik. Access’s industrial focus spans three sectors: natural resource and chemicals; media and telecommunications; and real estate...

, who merged it with Inform Group in 2007 to create Perform.

Virgin.net

For customers who do not live in cabled areas, NTL offers an ADSL broadband service through BT landline

Landline

A landline was originally an overland telegraph wire, as opposed to an undersea cable. Currently, landline refers to a telephone line which travels through a solid medium, either metal wire or optical fibre, as distinguished from a mobile cellular line, where transmission is via radio waves...

s under the Virgin.net

Virgin.net

brand, which it acquired in 2004 from Virgin Group

Virgin Group

, who founded it in 1996. Virgin.net customers receive up to 8 Mbit/s downstream and 400 kbit/s upstream. The service offers various usage-allowances depending on which package a user takes. Virgin.net also offers a dial-up service. Virgin.net also offers bundled phone-services via Carrier Preselect

Carrier Preselect

Carrier preselect is a term relating to the telecommunications industry. It is the process whereby a telephone subscriber whose telephone line is maintained by one company, usually a former monopoly provider , can choose to have some of their calls automatically routed across a different telephone...

(CPS) to broadband subscribers.

Prior to acquiring Virgin.net, NTL offered a similar package called NTL Freedom.

NTL:Telewest Business

NTL also provides extensive business telephony and data network services that provide a significant portion of its revenue streams, and carrier services to other telcos.

Broadcasting

NTL owned Flextech

Flextech

, a content-provider with a number of wholly owned channels (including Bravo and LIVINGtv

LIVINGtv

Sky Living is a UK television channel owned by British Sky Broadcasting, who purchased the Living TV Group group in 2010. Originally launched as UK Living in 1993, the channel changed its name to Living TV in 1997 and then to Living in 2007. On 1 February 2011 Living changed its name to Sky Living...

). Additionally, Flextech has a 50% share in UKTV

UKTV

(with BBC Worldwide

BBC Worldwide

), and owns Sit-Up Ltd

Sit-up Ltd

Bid Shopping is a UK based broadcaster which launched in 2000.To over 12 million homes, it delivers a portfolio of falling price shopping television channels. On 1 April 2009 it was announced that Sit-Up Ltd had been sold by Virgin Media to AURELIUS AG. The purchase price or terms of the agreement...

, who operate the Screenshop

Screenshop

Screenshop is a British digital television channel, owned by Sit-up Ltd. It is an infomercial-based shopping channel, selling a wide variety of products from TV Warehouse. On Virgin Media and Sky, the channel has a 7 hour stream of its own, and additionally it broadcasts daily 1.30am to 7.45am,...

, bid tv

Bid tv

Bid is a British television shopping channel based in the UK, that runs daily live reversed auctions. It was the first channel of its kind in the world. The channel first launched as Bid-Up.tv. The channel is owned by Bid Shopping.-Bid-Up.TV :...

, price-drop tv

Price-drop tv

Price Drop is a British television shopping channel based in the UK, that runs daily live reversed auctions. It was the first reverse auction channel of its kind in the world. The channel first launched as Price-Drop.TV. The channel is owned by Bid Shopping....

and speed auction tv

Speed auction tv

Speed Auction is a British television shopping channel, based in the UK that runs daily live reversed auctions. The channel is owned by Bid Shopping....

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.