Virgin Media Ireland is
Liberty Global
Liberty Global Ltd. is a British-Dutch-American multinational telecommunications company domiciled in Bermuda, with headquarters in London, Amsterdam and Denver. Its respective legal names are Liberty Global Holdings Limited (UK), Liberty Glo ...
's telecommunications operation in Ireland.
It is the largest digital cable television provider within the country.
the company offers broadband internet, digital television digital (
VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...
) telephony and mobile phone services to 1 million customers (31 December 2014).
Until 4 May 2010, Virgin Media Ireland traded under the name
Chorus NTL and
UPC Ireland until 5 October 2015. Its main competitors in the Irish
pay TV
Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...
market are
Sky Ireland
Sky Ireland Limited is a subsidiary of Comcast-owned Sky UK and supplies television, internet and telephony services in Ireland.
Its corporate headquarters are in Dublin which were opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny on 18 January 2013.
Sky Irelan ...
,
Eir and
Vodafone Ireland.
History
Liberty Global and its predecessors
UGC Europe and
Tele-Communications Inc. have had shareholdings in
Chorus Communications
Chorus, officially Chorus Communication Limited, was a communications provider in Ireland offering internet, television and telephone services. It was owned by Liberty Global Europe and ultimately controlled by John C. Malone's Liberty Media ...
and its predecessor, Princes Holdings (Irish Multichannel), since the company's formation in the early 1990s. Originally a joint venture with
Independent News and Media, IN&M sold its shares to Liberty in 2004.
In May 2005,
NTL agreed to sell its Irish operations
NTL Ireland (previously Cablelink) to Liberty Global.
Morgan Stanley
Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in 42 countries and more than 80,000 employees, the firm's clients in ...
held the shareholding until Competition Authority approval was obtained. This occurred in December 2005 and
UPC Ireland came into being on 12 December 2005.
In 2006, UPC Ireland began to integrate the brands Chorus and NTL to form Chorus NTL. Branding wise, on 5 September 2006 NTL's website was changed to the same design as Chorus i.e., itself based on UPC Netherlands' website design at the time. 25 January 2007,
NTL Ireland updated the electronic programme guide software to remove the NTL logo and all mention of the NTL name.
On 31 January 2007, NTL and Chorus began advertising jointly, although the adverts were simply the ongoing campaign from NTL with the Chorus logo added to them. On 4 June 2007 ''@ntlworld.ie'' e-mail addresses switched to ''@upcmail.ie''. The new UPC Mediabox set top boxes (STBs) which contain a hardrive based digital video recording system are fully UPC branded (albeit with the original UPC logo rather than the newer lowercase design) and come with a much enhanced EPG. These were rolled out on both the ex NTL and Chorus cable networks. From 2008, the old Pace STBs supplied by NTL Ireland (and originally designed for NTL UK) were replaced with new Pace STBs designed for UPC, also branded "UPC Mediabox" but without the hard drive/recording capabilities. In a ''
Sunday Business Post
The ''Business Post'' (formerly ''The Sunday Business Post'') is a Sunday newspaper distributed nationally in Ireland and an online publication. It is focused mainly on business and financial issues in Ireland.
Founding to Irish financial crisi ...
'' article on 11 February 2007, UPC Ireland's marketing manager revealed that the rebrand was due to take place no later than May 2007. This deadline was missed.
On 16 May 2007
UPC Netherlands introduced a new UPC logo, which was rolled out across UPC's European subsidiaries.
From July 2007, all UPC advertising began bearing a composite logo reading "Chorus NTL – a UPC company". On 10 June 2007 UPC announced its takeover of one of the remaining small Irish operators, Clane Cable Systems. This gained UPC an extra 2000 customers. During late September and early October 2007, Chorus and NTL included a leaflet with their bills explaining that a rebrand would occur on 21 October. That did not happen, however, on 30 October 2007, the NTL Ireland and Chorus websites were merged into a single website, although the composite Chorus NTL logo is used on it rather than the UPC logo. In November 2007, NTL Business was rebranded UPC Business, making it the first part of the company to officially adopt the UPC name.
On 29 April 2008 UPC's former Cork Communications cable network, latterly part of Chorus, became the first cable network in Ireland to switch to digital, with the analogue signal (except for the Irish terrestrial channels) switched off. On 4 May 2010 UPC began a €3 million spend on rebranding, completing the change from Chorus:NTL to UPC Ireland. A high-profile media campaign – fronted by broadcaster
Craig Doyle
Craig Doyle (born 17 December 1970) is an Irish television and radio presenter. To British viewers he is recognisable as working for the BBC and ITV and more recently TNT Sports; Irish viewers also know him as the host of RTÉ One chat show ...
– was planned to run for 3 months. It also lit up a number of buildings in Dublin (including Busáras and
Boland's Mill), Galway and Cork. UPC had received the final approvals to acquire assets from broadband rival Broadworks, which was in liquidation. This would give it access to about 6,600 homes in west Dublin and Meath. The Competition Authority cleared the deal on 21 April 2010.
On 3 July 2015 it was announced that UPC Ireland had bought the
TV3 Group
Virgin Media Television Ltd. (formerly known as TV3 Television Network Ltd.; previously Trade name, traded as the TV3 Group until August 2018) is a commercial television company in Ireland, based in Dublin. Launched in 1998 as TV3 Television ...
for €80 million from
Doughty Hanson, the deal may also deliver a further €7million should TV3 meet certain performance targets. The deal will need regulatory approval by
Competition and Consumer Protection Commission
Competition is a rivalry where two or more parties strive for a common goal which cannot be shared: where one's gain is the other's loss (an example of which is a zero-sum game). Competition can arise between entities such as organisms, indi ...
as well as a media plurality test by the Department of Communications.
On 28 August 2015, it was announced that UPC Ireland would become Virgin Media Ireland, thus dropping the UPC brand and replaced by the Virgin brand. The name change took place on 5 October.
In June 2021, it was reported that Liberty Global was seeking to sell Virgin Media Ireland after they merged their British Virgin Media company with that of Telefónica's O2.
Products
Virgin Media Ireland focuses on four key areas; cable television, broadband, mobile and telephone. The company offers
broadband internet
In telecommunications, broadband or high speed is the wide- bandwidth data transmission that exploits signals at a wide spread of frequencies or several different simultaneous frequencies, and is used in fast Internet access. The transmission m ...
services using the
EuroDOCSIS 3.0 standard as well as a
VoIP
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also known as IP telephony, is a set of technologies used primarily for voice communication sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. VoIP enables voice calls to be transmitted as ...
-based telephone service using
PacketCable. In addition, Virgin Media Ireland offers to business customers standard voice and internet services to more advanced services such as Ethernet LAN extensions, corporate voice services, and high-speed internet. These services are offered to large corporations, public organisations, and small to medium size businesses in Ireland, primarily in
Cork, Dublin,
Galway
Galway ( ; , ) is a City status in Ireland, city in (and the county town of) County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay. It is the most populous settlement in the province of Connacht, the List of settleme ...
,
Limerick
Limerick ( ; ) is a city in western Ireland, in County Limerick. It is in the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster and is in the Mid-West Region, Ireland, Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region, Ireland, Southern Region. W ...
, and
Waterford
Waterford ( ) is a City status in Ireland, city in County Waterford in the South-East Region, Ireland, south-east of Ireland. It is located within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Munster. The city is situated at the head of Waterford H ...
.
Broadband
In May 2010, Virgin Media Ireland announced plans for a 100 Mbit/s broadband service which would be offered to home users across its broadband-capable network in the coming months. In December 2010 UPC launched its 100 Mb Fibre Power Broadband package, making it the fastest ISP for residential customers in Ireland at the time. In September 2012, UPC increased the maximum speed available to residential customers to 150 Mb, while increasing their entry-level speed to 50 Mb. Virgin Media now offer 500 Mbit/s, 1 Gbit/s and 2 Gbit/s speeds to residential users.
Mobile
Virgin Mobile launched in October 2015 as a
mobile virtual network operator
A mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) is a wireless communications services provider that does not own the wireless network infrastructure over which it provides services to its customers. An MVNO enters into a business agreement with a mobil ...
using
Three
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious and cultural significance in many societies ...
's infrastructure. As of Q3 2020, the market share of Virgin Mobile in Ireland is 2.2%.
Television
The main product offered by Virgin Media Ireland is
cable
Cable may refer to:
Mechanical
* Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof
* Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
television services, in
SD and
HD digital formats, using
DVB-C
Digital Video Broadcasting - Cable (DVB-C) is the Digital Video Broadcasting, DVB European consortium standard for the broadcast transmission of digital television over coaxial cable, cable. This system transmits an MPEG-2 or MPEG-4 family digita ...
encrypted using
Nagravision
Nagravision (or Nagra Kudelski or simply Nagra) is a company of the Kudelski Group that develops conditional access systems for digital cable and satellite television. The name is also used for their main products, the Nagravision enc ...
. Digital is now available in the vast majority of areas, with the Cork cable network becoming the first in Ireland to become digital-only.
On 14 August 2007, UPC launched a
Personal Video Recorder
A digital video recorder (DVR), also referred to as a personal video recorder (PVR) particularly in Canadian English, Canadian and British English, is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, S ...
, the UPC Mediabox, marketed as the Digital+ or Digital+HD Box in ex-NTL areas, subsequently rolled out to other areas.
On 5 August 2009 UPC launched its HDTV service in Ireland, which includes many international and regional television broadcasters.
In April 2013, UPC launched its Horizon TV service, which allows UPC customers to watch a selection of television channels from various internet enabled devices using their UPC broadband connection.
On 12 August 2013, UPC launched a Horizon HD+ set-top box. It offers HD as standard and consolidates all services (TV, broadband and home phone) into one device. It also allows customers to record four television programmes while watching a fifth.
On-Demand TV
On 25 May 2012 UPC Ireland launched its UPC On-Demand TV service in Ireland, with a full roll-out expected to be complete by September. A similar service had already been rolled out to UPC customers in the
Netherlands
, Terminology of the Low Countries, informally Holland, is a country in Northwestern Europe, with Caribbean Netherlands, overseas territories in the Caribbean. It is the largest of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Nether ...
,
Hungary
Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...
,
Switzerland
Switzerland, officially the Swiss Confederation, is a landlocked country located in west-central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the south, France to the west, Germany to the north, and Austria and Liechtenstein to the east. Switzerland ...
,
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...
and
Austria
Austria, formally the Republic of Austria, is a landlocked country in Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine Federal states of Austria, states, of which the capital Vienna is the List of largest cities in Aust ...
.
The service provides all customers with unlimited access to
RTÉ Player and
Virgin Media Player, with
TG4 Player
TG4 (; , ) is an Irish free-to-air public service television channel. It launched on 31 October 1996 and is available online and through its on-demand service TG4 Player in Ireland and beyond.
TG4 was initially known as (TnaG), before bein ...
set to follow suit. Max package customers are also able to watch
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is a British public service broadcaster headquartered at Broadcasting House in London, England. Originally established in 1922 as the British Broadcasting Company, it evolved into its current sta ...
,
ITV and US box sets and additional content from the likes of
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel, known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery, is an American cable channel that is best known for its ongoing reality television shows and promotion of pseudoscience.
It init ...
,
Food Network
Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a unit of Warner Bros. Discovery, who manages and operates it as a division of the Warner Bros. Discovery U.S. Networks Group. The channel airs both televi ...
,
FX,
History
History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
,
MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...
and
True Movies. The video on demand service also allows customers in Ireland to watch classic movies and the latest cinematic releases.
Broadcasting
Virgin Media Ireland operates its own TV division, Virgin Media Television, based in Dublin.
As of August 2022, it consists of five television channels:
Current channels:
*
Virgin Media One
*
Virgin Media Two
*
Virgin Media Three
Virgin Media Three, also called Virgin Three, is an Irish free-to-air television channel owned by Virgin Media Television.
The channel was first launched by Northern Irish broadcaster UTV Media on 1 January 2015 as UTV Ireland; it primari ...
*
Virgin Media Four
*
Virgin Media More
Former channels:
*
Virgin Media Sport
Subscriptions
As of September 2019, Virgin has 26% of broadband subscriptions.
[ Quarterly Key Data Report Q3 2019](_blank)
- Commission for Communications Regulation, 12 December 2019
References
External links
*
List of channels on Virgin Media (Ireland)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Upc Ireland
Irish companies established in 2005
Cable television companies
Internet service providers of the Republic of Ireland
Liberty Global
Mass media companies of Ireland
Telecommunications companies of the Republic of Ireland
Virgin Media
Mass media companies established in 2005