The parent company of Virgin Mobile relaunched itself in the U.K. as Virgin Media, a quad-play provider of broadband Internet, cable television, and wireless and wireline phone services in a bid to better compete against Vodafone, BT, BSkyB and others.
In the works since last July, when NTL:Telewest bought Virgin Mobile for $1.89 billion, the rebranded Virgin Media plays on the combined strengths of the Telewest cable unit and Virgin Mobile’s wireless unit to offer four major services under a single banner.
The venture hopes to lure existing customers to its other services by providing value and enhanced offerings, such as its new TV channel – Virgin Central – which will combine regular programming with video-on-demand technology.
“For the first time, there is a single brand set to provide a more extensive range of television entertainment, broadband and communication services than previously offered by anyone on the U.K.,” said Sir Richard Branson, founder and former owner of Virgin Mobile. He now holds a 15% majority share of Virgin Media stock.
Along with the new company name, Virgin Media is offering four new plans that let customers pick and choose which of the services they want. The company has also employed actress Uma Thurman to be the new face of Virgin Media.