Posted: 23rd Oct, 2007 By: MarkJ
VirginMedia (VM) has had a rough year since completing a crucial re-brand and merger of three businesses (Virgin Mobile, ntl and Telewest). Its conflict with BSkyB over TV channels caused thousands of customers to jump ship and more recently there has been speculation surrounding the groups potential sale via private equity, although unstable markets have since put that idea to bed for awhile.
Regardless, VM remains one of the largest operators in the UK with around 10 million customers, roughly 3.5m of which come from its broadband Internet access services; that makes any movement by VM incredibly important for the wider market to observe.
This week saw VMs acting CEO, Neil Berkett, announce his intention to
refocus the operators
energies onto [ITS] broadband platform, a move that could prove pivotal. Naturally ISPreview took the opportunity to interview the groups head of Product Management & Development for communication services, Paul Elworthy, about the future and opinions on market developments:
8. Does Virgin Media ever intend a return to expanding the coverage of its cable (non-ADSL) based network beyond existing areas?We currently have no major plans to expand our cable network on a wide scale, but we do have exciting plans for offering more services beyond the current cable reach - over copper wire (ADSL). We are aiming to develop an IPTV (TV over internet) service next year, which will compliment the existing broadband, home and mobile phone services which are already widely available in non-cable areas. Until then, we offer a digital terrestrial TV service beyond our cable reach. Our network partner for these developments will be Cable & Wireless.
http://www.ispreview.co.uk/articles/virgin07/ .