Scathing financial analysis of Virgin Media

[azekeil]

It's not looking good for Virgin Media customers.

Comments

[ev1ldonut.livejournal.com]

What's the URL? I can only see the mangled one with the proxy, and the proxy doesn't like the XML...

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/05/14/virgin_media_analysis/

[gerald_duck]

So what Virgin Media customers should do, of course, is back out of their contract as soon as possible.

And the moment customers start thinking that way the company's completely fucked.

Someone in Virgin Media needs to get a grip absolutely as soon as possible; it may already be too late.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

The trouble is - as they point out in the article, the cable broadband is the best broadband service out there - despite the price and new throttling policy. This may however change in the future due to lack of investment now. If that is the case, it will change in the future..

[stuartl.livejournal.com]

I've no intention of switching from NTL/Virgin to DSL. I need broadband for my home life and working from home so the options are:

• Expensive leased line/SDSL/business broadband


• NTL/Virgin broadband, already installed and working


• DSL provider. May save me a fiver on broadband fees but obliged to pay 10-15 quid a month for a BT phone line. And neither BT nor the DSL provider will even confirm that DSL will work at an acceptable rate over the as-yet uninstalled phone line.

Now NTL/Virgin aren't perfect. The service does drop out from time to time and the customer service sucks. The Virgin financials are criticised above and throw doubt on future prospects.

However where does this improve with DSL? 24/7/365 users of DSL know that it drops out just as often as NTL/Virgin cable, the customer service is a bit of a lottery with those providers as they inevitably get good reviews, hundreds of customers move over and they can't expand fast enough. They then lose favour after investing in resources for customer support, costs that they then need to recover with broadband fees.

Better the devil you know? Perhaps not but I'm not going to change to DSL on the basis of one analyst.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

This is my point. At the moment they're still better than the rest, IMHO, even with the new throttling arrangements. However if they continue on the line they're on, I may have to consider switching in the future. More upload speed would be nice, too.

[voreagkelos.livejournal.com]

Don't forget that as a Virgin subsidiary, Branson can look at the losses and use the cash flow of his other subsidiaries to bail this one out. Of course he may seek to cut his losses but it would be unlike him to do so. I knew the changover from Telewest would bring some bad news our way but I was hoping with Virgin's business acumen and flair for innovation we would get some major perks. I could stand losing my sky channels if the price came down or if my broadband went up in speed, even if only in upload bandwidth...I have been pretty dissapointed so far. As Stuart said though, there's not much of an alternative.

[azekeil.livejournal.com]

Well, yes, but the article also suggests that Virgin is neglecting investing in the future, which means that it will soon get outstripped by other service providers. Still, that's a problem for later rather than now..