22 Facts About NTL Incorporated

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.

NTL Incorporated began to expand outside the UK in 2000, buying into markets on continental Europe and Ireland.

NTL Incorporated, 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.

NTL Incorporated 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.

In December 2004, NTL Incorporated sold its broadcast-unit to a consortium led by Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group for £1.

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In late 2004, NTL Incorporated purchased the remaining shares of the Internet service provider virgin.

On 3 October 2005, NTL Incorporated 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 Incorporated having to negotiate with BBC Worldwide, the BBC's commercial arm, due to a change-of-ownership clause written into the agreement for UKTV, a joint venture with Telewest's Flextech content division.

The deal included a 30-year exclusive branding agreement that saw NTL Incorporated adopt the Virgin name across its consumer operations as it merged operations with its current Telewest brand.

In November 2006, NTL Incorporated announced that it had approached commercial television broadcaster ITV about a proposed merger.

On 6 December 2006, NTL Incorporated announced that it had complained to the Office of Fair Trading about BSkyB's move, and that it would withdraw its attempt to buy ITV plc, stating that it did not believe that it could currently make a deal on favourable terms.

Furthermore, NTL Incorporated started conducting trials of a 100Mbit broadband service on its cable network.

NTL Incorporated provided ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers with broadband through the set-top box used for digital television services, adopting the rationale that subscribers could self-install.

NTL Incorporated eventually replaced the Pace set-top boxes with Samsung models that used a dual-processor architecture, overcoming the shortcomings of the Pace, and capable of much better downstream performance.

NTL Incorporated has used MAC addresses to track and register customers to the NTL Incorporated internet service.

On 1 September 2006, NTL Incorporated introduced the FreeTV digital package to its telephone subscribers free of charge.

NTL Incorporated launched TV Drive, its high-definition television and Digital Video Recorder service in Glasgow and Teesside on 16 November 2006.

NTL Incorporated started to roll out its Video on Demand service branded "NTL Incorporated On Demand".

NTL Incorporated offered other television-shows, films, and music videos, mostly for an additional fee.

NTL Incorporated provided telephone services to its customers, as the second-largest fixed-line telephony provider in the UK, behind BT, who until 1984 held the monopoly on fixed-line telephony services in the UK.

NTL Incorporated pulled out of the deal on 18 October 2000, claiming that it was "unable to agree final terms".

On 19 June 2000, NTL Incorporated entered into a joint venture with The Football League to set up an internet portal for all 72 clubs.