In March 2006, NTL merged with fellow cable telecom company Telewest, and created 'NTL:Telewest', which then also merged with Virgin Mobile UK and Virgin.net in June 2006, creating the UK's first "quadruple play" telecom provider, offering television, internet, landline phone and mobile phone services.

Initially, Cabletel acquired local cable franchises covering Guildford and parts of Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales.

In 1996 CableTel acquired National Transcommunications Limited (NTL), the privatised UK Independent Broadcasting Authority transmission-network.

[1] [2] Devalued and struggling with debts of around $18bn, NTL had to seek Chapter 11 bankruptcy-protection in May 2002 in order to organise a refinancing deal.

New executives replaced the NTL president, CEO and co-founder Barclay Knapp, as well as Stephen Carter, the MD and COO.

In December 2004, NTL sold its broadcast-unit to a consortium led by Macquarie Communications Infrastructure Group (MCG) for £1.27 billion.

This sale allowed NTL to focus on its "core businesses" of providing communications packages and cable services.

[3] By 2005, its UK network consisted of a 7,800 km fibre backbone with the potential to reach 8.4 million residential homes and around 610,000 businesses.

On 3 October 2005, NTL announced a USD$6 billion purchase of Telewest, forming one of the largest media companies in the UK.

The parties completed the merger on 3 March 2006, making the merged company the UK's largest cable-provider, with more than 90% of the market.

Sir Richard Branson reportedly expressed confidence that a re-structured deal could go ahead, and in January 2006 NTL increased its offer to £961m (372p per share).

The takeover, which was completed on 4 July 2006, created the UK's first 'quadruple play' media company, bringing together television, Internet broadband, mobile-phone and fixed-line phone services.

BSkyB effectively blocked the merger on 12 November 2006, when it controversially bought a 17.9% stake in ITV plc,[5] a move that attracted anger from NTL shareholder Richard Branson[6] and an investigation from media and telecoms regulator Ofcom.

[7] On 6 December 2006, NTL 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.

The broadband services did not have a bandwidth-cap or a fair-usage policy; this means that customers have unlimited usage and need pay no extra charges related to the amount of data downloaded.

Initially, NTL decided to terminate service to approximately 90,000 ex-Cable and Wireless subscribers on short notice.

[13] This threatened to leave customers stranded and without access to their email or websites and was due to NTL's lack of infrastructure capability in some areas.

Before termination of services, Boltblue struck a deal with NTL and Cable and Wireless Communications to save 90,000 [14] and later an additional 210,000 customers.

The digital television service, which launched in 2000, offered a number of products including true video on demand, a PVR, and HDTV.

NTL launched TV Drive, its high-definition television (HDTV) and personal video recorder (PVR) service in Glasgow and Teesside on 16 November 2006.

NTL also offered other television shows, films (service branded FilmFlex), and music videos, mostly for an additional fee.

[25] On 14 June 2000, NTL won the rights to show 40 live Premier League matches on a pay-per-view basis for three years, beginning at the start of the 2001–02 season.

[26] The failure to complete the deal, led to a lack of confidence in their proposed 2005 joint bid with ITV plc.

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

The League clubs would now receive £5m and an 80-per-cent share of all future revenue earned by the venture until the total amount reaches the original figure of £35m.

In April 2004 the newly created ITV plc bought NTL's remaining 35-per-cent stake to assume full control of the channel.

[38][39] The Ice Hockey Superleague issued a high court writ claiming damages of up to £10m from the company, after its £1m-a-year TV deal was cancelled at short notice.

At the same time, Quest doubled paid subscribers to 75,000, cut staff by 50-per-cent, and broke even within 15 months of taking control.

[41][42] In February 2001, NTL and Vivendi Universal launched The Studio, a 50:50 joint venture film channel which was carried by cable networks in the UK and Ireland.