Telewest Broadband
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Telewest Broadband (formerly Telewest) is one of the two major cable companies in the United Kingdom. Its cable network is the second largest in the UK (after NTL) and covers several areas of the United Kingdom. On this cable network, Telewest provides several residential services including:
- Talk Unlimited, Talk Mobile, Talk Evenings and Weekends and Talk Weekends telephony services. Existing customers may also take the 321 service until it is discontinued in summer 2005.
- A digital televison service, formerly named Active Digital.
- BlueYonder (formerly Cable Internet), broadband Internet access via cable modems.
- An analogue cable TV service, which is due to be fully terminated in 2007.
Future services include:
- "Teleport" A Video on Demand service.
- Personal Video Recorder box made by Scientific Atlanta.
Telewest also provides extensive business telephony and data network services that provide a significant portion of its revenue streams, and carrier services to other telcos.
Telewest has gone through a lot of troubles recently due to its reputation for poor customer service and the huge debts it created when constructing its cable network, acquiring other cable companies and assets. In 2004 Telewest re-structured its balance sheet by swapping its unsecured debt for 98.5% of its shares. Shares were then consolidated and delisted from London. Major Telewest shareholders included Huff and Liberty Media (run by cable tycoon John Malone).
Since then, the company has emerged from financial restructuring and is listed on the NASDAQ.
It also owns former Deutsche Telekom company Eurobell, a cable company in Devon and Cornwall, which is fully intergrated into the company now; Flextech a content provider (TV Channels) like UkTV. There are rumours that Telewest, will be subject to a takeover bid or merger offer from rival firm NTL in the near future. It is unclear at present about Flextech.
Telewest passes approximately 4.2 million homes. blueyonder speeds offered are 512 kbit/s, 1 Mbit/s, 2 Mbit/s and 4 Mbit/s with prices ranging from around £14.99 per month to £50 per month.
External links
- Telewest home page (http://www.telewest.co.uk)
- blueyonder home page (http://www.blueyonder.co.uk)
- Eurobell home page (http://www.eurobell.co.uk)
- eXthus: Cable news, information and forums (http://www.exthus.co.uk)
- Broadband Comparison home page (http://www.findmebroadband.co.uk)
- Telewest Global Share price (http://uk.finance.yahoo.com/q?s=TLWT)
- TelewestInfo - An Unofficial Telewest Information Site (http://www.telewestinfo.co.uk)