Cable company ntl:Telewest is renaming itself Virgin Media, building on the rights that it acquired in spring last year to use the well-respected brand when, as we reported, it bought out Virgin Mobile.
The clear intention of the buy-out was to allow the company to offer an all-in-one quad-play service - TV, internet, landline phone and mobile phone - and this was confirmed in summer, as we also reported.
Now, though, even before the November-announced renaming has taken place, Virgin Media is starting a blitz to try to grow the number of subscribers and this kicked off last week with a postal campaign that saw leaflets dropping on the door-mats of existing customers hinting at what's on offer.
Maddeningly, what's missing from this information - wouldn't you know? - is any concrete details on pricing and availability!
All the literature provides is a link to a web site, http://www.knowfirst.co.uk, where, again, there's nothing about pricing or exact availability.
Site visitors are told that Virgin Media products are available now and provided with two phone numbers to call - 0800 052 1155 for existing customers and 0800 052 0460 for new.
It's likely, we think, that the buying side of the site has been unexpectedly delayed and, thus, is out of synch with the consumer push but, cynics that we are, our initial thought was that the company believes its own sales reps are more likely to sign you up than is an impersonal web page.
That seemed to be borne out by various calls we made to the 0800 052 1155 number for existing customers but, though we were surprised and a bit distressed by the varying sales pitches we heard, it may well be that, come Thursday morning, everything will change.
That's when we're promised the detail of Virgin Media's offerings will be formally unveiled and when, hopefully, the company will at last offer a true quad-play package - and one that provides especially good value for money.
We have an NTL phone line in our north-east London office, so we rang the number for existing customers only to discover - perversely - that calls are answered thus, "You've reached sales at ntl:Telewest".
Yes, no mention of Virgin at all.
The recorded message - in a near-Geordie accent - actually appeared to be saying, "You've reached seals at ntl:Telewest" and that's even more perverse!
We told the guy we spoke to about the stuff that had landed on our mat and he seemed friendly and helpful but only attempted to sell us what was currently available - making no mention of any lower-cost deals that might be in the pipeline or of any changes that let you sign up for a mobile phone service at the same time that you opt for TV, landline phone and internet.
Currently, despite what ntl:Telewest has said in the past, mobiles are not part of any deal - there is a lower-price for ntl:Telewest customers but the account has to be paid for quite separately, on a month-by-month contract with Virgin Mobile that, our man on the phone said, costs £10 per mobile and limits you to no more than two mobiles. That would total £20 per month - there's no further saving.
Each mobile user gets 300 minutes of calls across any network per month, plus 300 texts per phone.
With the current separate triple-play service - TV, phone and internet - there's a minimum 12-month contract and, seemingly, a tendency to have to pay more for less - judging by what we were first told.
We'd explained that we currently had TV from Sky with sports and movies; 1Mbit broadband from Pipex over a BT line (but likely to rise to 8Mbit soon); a landline-phone deal - also with Pipex - that provided 3,000 free minutes of calls to UK 01 and 02 numbers; plus four family members each with a mobile.
The package that was suggested - at £85 per month - has sports and movies and provides high-def TV reception courtesy of cable and a personal video recorder - the V+ HD box - together with a second, but standard-def receiver (the V box?) for use in another room.
The bundle has 10MBit broadband (unlimited - but restricted by fair-usage), 24/7 free calls to UK 01/02 landline numbers and "cheap" calls abroad.
We asked for pricing for landline calls to four countries and were told that the per-minute costs were 2p for the USA and Holland; and 4p for German and France - all with no connection charges.
In addition, the deal offers "cheap" calls from landline to mobiles. Calling Virgin or T-Mobile, the per-minute prices are 11p during the day, 7p after 6pm and 3p at weekends. For reasons daytime and weekend calls to 02 were cheaper - 10p per min during the day and 2p at weekends - though calls to 02 were costlier in the evening, 9p after 6pm.
We said that the £85 per month was more than we expected and not necessarily appropriate since we didn't have an HD TV set and no mobiles were included.
But we were told that, in effect, we'd only end up paying more if we opted for standard definition TV or a slower broadband connection.
Switching to 4MBit broadband, we were told, would make the monthly total £96 while opting for standard definition would not only lose us the benefits of the twin- tuner V+ box's personal video recorder capabilities it would also end up with us paying £96.50 per month.
We don't know how much of that was actually true since the options shown on ntl:Telewest's site are just as hard to understand as they are on most ISPs' sites, but we did take away one major positive from the conversation.
That's the promise that, because broadband would be delivered on NTL's own cable, we were unlikely to be without a service during the switchover. Also, there would be no need even to acquire a Mac address from Pipex to enable the switch over - just tell the company when we wanted the service to cease.
A little while after, we called again and spoke to a different rep - telling her that we wanted to further explore the information about Virgin Media that had been sent in the post but to know if there were cheaper prices than we'd be quoted in our earlier call.
We also said we'd heard that the packages and prices were going to change and that, since we had all the services already - though from different companies - it probably made sense for us to wait for any new deals that were in the pipeline.
We were told, explicitly, that there were no changes in price coming and that any changes that were going to be made had already been made this month.
We were offered two deals - one with free weekend calls, "extralarge" TV (with sports) and 2Mbit unlimited broadband for £55.50; the other the same but with no sports and pitched at £40. These two packages, though, didn't include any specials for calls to mobiles or for daytime calls or, of course, any mobile service.
It was pointed out that if we weren't that interested in movies, but might like to watch one every now and then, that there was an on-demand service where some programmes are free and films cost between £1 and £4 each.
We have no real clues what Virgin Media is going to unveil on Thursday morning but can only hope that it's a whole lot more understandable than the packages that are currently sold by ntl:Telewest. It would also be good to think that the mobile accounts can be bundled in, too (and for more than two phones) - and may be that there are even some significant savings.
Watch the HEXUS.lifestyle front page for news from the Virgin Media event and, in the interim, tell us in the HEXUS.community your thoughts about the complex business of trying to sort out the best-value deals for TV, internet, phone and mobile services.
HEXUS.links
HEXUS.community :: discussion thread about this articleHEXUS.lifestyle.headlines :: NTL promising first UK quad-play (TV, broadband, landline & mobile) service
HEXUS.hardlines :: NTL to take over Virgin Mobile
External.links
Virgin Media - know firstntl:Telewest - home page
Virgin Mobile UK - home page
