Businessweek

12, ‘Download to Rent’ functionality was added to the online version of Virgin Movies, allowing customers to rent titles and watch them when offline. This is available to non-Virgin Media subscribers. Fixed Line Telephony The company provides local, national, and international telephony services to its residential customers on its cable network. It offers a basic line rental service to its cable customers for a fixed monthly fee. In addition to basic line rental, it offers tiered bundles of call tariffs, features, and services, including calling plans that enable customers to make unlimited national landline calls and calls to mobile telephones either during specified periods or at anytime, for an incremental fixed monthly fee. The company’s customers could also make calls to Virgin mobiles free of charge and might also subscribe to additional services, such as call waiting, call blocking, call forwarding, three-way calling, advanced voicemail, and caller line identification services for an additional fee. It also intends to launch a mobile handset application that would allow customers to call landlines and mobile phones using Wi-Fi networks. As of December 31, 2012, it provided cable telephony services to approximately 4.2 million residential subscribers. Mobile Products and Services As a mobile virtual network operator, the company provides mobile telephony services to its customers through cellular networks owned by third parties. Its customer base comprises both contract customers and pre-pay customers. As of December 31, 2012, it had approximately 3.0 million mobile telephony customers, of which approximately 1.7 million were contract customers. The company offers a range of mobile communications products and services, including mobile voice services and data services, such as SMS, picture messaging, games, news, and music services. It also offers a range of handsets, including Blackberry and Android based smartphones, and mobile broadband services, which complement its fixed broadband offering. Its services are delivered through 2G, 2.5G, 3G, and 3.5G platforms provided by its network partner, EE. Non-cable Products and Services The company also provides broadband and telephony services to residential customers outside of its cable network, or non-cable customers, through third-party telecommunications networks. Its non-cable broadband Internet services are provided through BT Group plc’s (BT's) local access network and unbundled BT exchanges from Cable & Wireless plc (C&W). The company offers various price and feature packages, including broadband service provided through asymmetric digital subscriber line technology. As of December 31, 2012, it had 192,800 non-cable broadband subscribers. The company also provides fixed line telephony service to non-cable customers through BT's local access network. As of December 31, 2012, it provided non-cable fixed line telephone service to 130,500 subscribers. Marketing and Sales The company provides the convenience of a single bill for ‘triple-play’ (TV, broadband, and fixed line telephony) packages and additional value to these customers when they take its mobile services. It offers its consumer products and services through a range of retail channels, including through inbound and outbound telesales, customer care centers, and online. The company has a national retail store base with approximately 79 retail stores and approximately 65 kiosk type retail outlets, which offer a range of its consumer products and services. The company offers its prepay mobile telephony products through its 4,000 third party sales outlets in the U.K., including approximately 1,000 specialist outlets of its distribution partners, such as Carphone Warehouse Group plc and Phones 4U. In addition, it offers SIM-only products and mobile airtime vouchers through independent retailers across the U.K. Competition The company’s primary competitors include BT, British Sky Broadcasting Group plc (BSkyB), TalkTalk Telecom Group plc (TalkTalk), Vodafone, EE, O2, and 3 UK. It also competes with Vonage, magicJack, WhatsApp, and Skype, as well as Facebook and Twitter. The