CableTel

NTL Incorporated, branded as ntl:, was a United States-listed British company founded in 1992, which provided cable television, cable internet and fixed-line cable telephone services. While NTL had its headquarters in New York City, the company's activities focused heavily on the United Kingdom, with operational headquarters in Hook, Hampshire.

NTL became the dominant cable operator in the United Kingdom, controlling more than 90% of the market. In 2005 residential services generated 78% of NTL's revenue, and business services 22%.

In March 2006, NTL merged with fellow cable telecom company Telewest, and created 'NTL:Telewest', which then also merged with Virgin Mobile UK and Virgin.net in June 2006, creating the UK's first "quadruple play" telecom provider, offering television, internet, landline phone and mobile phone services. In February 2007, NTL:Telewest was rebranded as Virgin Media.

History

1992–2006

Barclay Knapp and George Blumenthal, the founders of American cellular network company Cellular Communications, Inc. (sold to Airtouch in 1996), established International CableTel in 1993 to take advantage of the deregulation of the UK cable market. Initially, Cabletel acquired local cable franchises covering Guildford and parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. In 1996 CableTel acquired National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), the privatised UK Independent Broadcasting Authority transmission-network. In May 1998 CableTel adopted "NTL" as its new name.

The company spent heavily: both on expanding its network and on acquiring rivals (in 1999, it acquired Cambridge Cable, one of the earliest digital networks, that had been installed across the university city ten years earlier). The company also began to expand outside the UK in 2000, buying into markets on continental Europe and Ireland.

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 problems, then had to contend with the setting up in November 2002 of one of the UK's first consumer lobby-groups, nthellworld, with ntl:hell following shortly after. As a complementary move, a team of NTL employees founded the website, 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 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, Swiss and German parts of the corporation). New executives replaced the NTL president, CEO and co-founder Barclay Knapp, as well as Stephen Carter, the MD and COO.

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

In late 2004, NTL purchased the remaining shares of the Internet service provider (ISP) virgin.net, originally a joint venture between NTL and Richard Branson's Virgin Group.

By 2005, its UK network consisted of a 7,800 km fibre backbone 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. With content selected by NTL, this service covered genres including music videos, children's programming and adult entertainment, as an extension to the basic 'pay per view' services the company offered for film and sport content. The new service allowed customers to rewind, fast forward and pause content.

Despite NTL Ireland turning a profit, in May 2005, NTL sold their Dublin, Galway, and Waterford 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, resulting in a loss of €500 million, more than 50% of the purchase price. Liberty Global continued to use the NTL brand in Ireland, but was eventually merged with Chorus Communications and rebranded as UPC Ireland in May 2010.

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 services making NTL the market leader in this field.

Telewest

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$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, the BBC
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