NEWS
Cable operator NTL has completed its takeover of Virgin Mobile, creating the UK's first 'quadruple play' telecoms operator.
The two companies announced on Tuesday morning that NTL will pay a total of £962.4m for Virgin Mobile. NTL had previously offered £871m for the company, which had been rejected by the Virgin Group.
The deal means that NTL — which merged with fellow cable operator Telewest in April — can provide mobile phone services to its customers alongside its existing fixed-line telephony, broadband and cable television offerings. NTL believes quadruple play will help to swell its income, especially if its customers decide they want to take all their telecoms services from one provider.
The deal "enhances NTL as a scale competitor in the UK telecommunications industry, enabling it to become the first market participant offering an integrated quad-play product suite, combining NTL's network, products and triple-play experience together with Virgin Mobile's national mobile business, creating a national communications and entertainment company," said NTL in a statement released on Tuesday.
NTL will also have the right to rebrand itself under the Virgin name.
"NTL believes that the Virgin brand would bring it a strong consumer appeal, positioning, and customer focus to a quad-play offering. It would allow NTL to utilise Virgin’s brand expertise and consumer focus and should help increase customer loyalty and appeal," said the cable operator, pointing to a recent survey which found that the Virgin brand is the most admired brand in the UK.
In contrast, NTL has been dogged by persistent customer complaints about its service, with some disgruntled users dubbing it "NTHell".
Graeme Wearden writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
There are 4 comments. Join the discussion
1. Julian Nicholls
It looks like I've had a lucky escape, I was about to change over to Virgin, but there's no chance of that now.
2. M Horwell
I hope Virgin bring their above average Customer care with them, as an existing NTL Customer it'd be nice to get some proper services and customer care at the same time! I doubt I'd trust them with my mobile as well as the broadband though!
3. misceng
NTLHell sums it up. My latest bill from NTL informs me that the 0800 number for customer service is shut down. Instead I can complain about TV service at 5p per minute or broadband at 10p per minute. Since the average wait to get a haman voice is about 15 minutes they can soon recoup the cost of Virgin. I have stopped complaining since I never get a satisfactory answer anyway.
4. John Anderson
The 0880 issue is a strange one as previousley, broadband support waas £1 per minute week days and 1p per minute at weekends. Si if you neede help in the week it was very expensive.
Now it is 10p any time. Am I thick or is that not better?