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Virgin Media Ireland is Liberty Global's telecommunications operation in Ireland. It is the largest digital cable television provider within the country. As of 31 December 2014, the company offers broadband internet, digital television and digital (
VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
) telephony to 1 million customers. Until 4 May 2010, Virgin Media Ireland traded under the name Chorus NTL and UPC Ireland until 5 October 2015. Its main competitors in the Irish
pay TV Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...
market are
Sky Ireland Sky Ireland Limited is a subsidiary of Comcast-owned Sky and supplies television, internet and telephony services in Ireland. Its corporate headquarters are in Dublin which were opened by Taoiseach Enda Kenny on 18 January 2013. Sky Ireland ...
,
Eir In Norse mythology, Eir (Old Norse: , "protection, help, mercy"Orchard (1997:36).) is a goddess or valkyrie associated with medical skill. Eir is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources; th ...
and
Vodafone Ireland Vodafone Ireland Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Vodafone Group, is a mobile phone network and broadband provider in the Republic of Ireland. It was created when the Vodafone Group bought Eircell, the mobile arm of Telecom Éireann. ...
.


History

Liberty Global and its predecessors
UGC Europe UGC may refer to: Science and technology * Universal gravitational constant G, in physics * Uppsala General Catalogue, an astronomical catalogue of galaxies * UGC, a codon for cysteine * Unique games conjecture, a conjecture in computational com ...
and
Tele-Communications Inc. Tele-Communications, Inc. (TCI) was a cable television provider in the United States, and for most of its history was controlled by Bob Magness and John Malone. The company was started in 1958 in Bozeman, Montana as Western Microwave, Inc. and Co ...
have had shareholdings in
Chorus Communications Chorus, officially Chorus Communication Limited, was a communications provider in Ireland offering internet, television and telephone services. It was owned by Liberty Global Europe and ultimately controlled by John C. Malone's Liberty Media. ...
and its predecessor, Princes Holdings (Irish Multichannel), since the company's formation in the early 1990s. Originally a joint venture with
Independent News and Media Mediahuis Ireland (formally Independent News and Media (INM) )) is a media organisation that is based in Dublin and publishes national daily newspapers, Sunday newspapers, regional newspapers and operates multiple websites including Independent. ...
, IN&M sold its shares to Liberty in 2004. In May 2005,
NTL NTL may refer to: Companies * NTL Incorporated and NTL Internet, later Virgin Media, communications media company ** NTL Ireland, later Virgin Media Ireland * Arqiva, UK company formerly ''NTL Broadcast'' and ''National Transcommunications L ...
agreed to sell its Irish operations
NTL Ireland NTL Communications (Ireland) Limited was a cable television and Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS) company in Ireland. As of 2005 it was owned by Liberty Global Europe (see history, below), having been divested by NTL. It was r ...
(previously Cablelink) to Liberty Global.
Morgan Stanley Morgan Stanley is an American multinational investment management and financial services company headquartered at 1585 Broadway in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. With offices in more than 41 countries and more than 75,000 employees, the fir ...
held the shareholding until Competition Authority approval was obtained. This occurred in December 2005 and UPC Ireland came into being on 12 December 2005. In 2006, UPC Ireland began to integrate the brands Chorus and NTL to form Chorus NTL. Branding wise, on 5 September 2006 NTL's website was changed to the same design as Chorus i.e., itself based on UPC Netherlands' website design at the time. 25 January 2007,
NTL Ireland NTL Communications (Ireland) Limited was a cable television and Multichannel Multipoint Distribution Service (MMDS) company in Ireland. As of 2005 it was owned by Liberty Global Europe (see history, below), having been divested by NTL. It was r ...
updated the electronic programme guide software to remove the NTL logo and all mention of the NTL name. On 31 January 2007, NTL and Chorus began advertising jointly, although the adverts were simply the ongoing campaign from NTL with the Chorus logo added to them. On 4 June 2007 ''@ntlworld.ie'' e-mail addresses switched to ''@upcmail.ie''. The new UPC Mediabox set top boxes (STBs) which contain a hardrive based digital video recording system are fully UPC branded (albeit with the original UPC logo rather than the newer lowercase design) and come with a much enhanced EPG. These were rolled out on both the ex NTL and Chorus cable networks. From 2008, the old Pace STBs supplied by NTL Ireland (and originally designed for NTL UK) were replaced with new Pace STBs designed for UPC, also branded "UPC Mediabox" but without the hard drive/recording capabilities. In a '' Sunday Business Post'' article on 11 February 2007, UPC Ireland's marketing manager revealed that the rebrand was due to take place no later than May 2007. This deadline was missed. On 16 May 2007
UPC Netherlands UPC Nederland ( en, UPC Netherlands) was the second largest cable operator in the Netherlands, providing cable television (digital and analogue), broadband Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers. In early 2015 ...
introduced a new UPC logo, which was rolled out across UPC's European subsidiaries. From July 2007, all UPC advertising began bearing a composite logo reading "Chorus NTL – a UPC company". On 10 June 2007 UPC announced its takeover of one of the remaining small Irish operators, Clane Cable Systems. This gained UPC an extra 2000 customers. During late September and early October 2007, Chorus and NTL included a leaflet with their bills explaining that a rebrand would occur on 21 October. That did not happen, however, on 30 October 2007, the NTL Ireland and Chorus websites were merged into a single website, although the composite Chorus NTL logo is used on it rather than the UPC logo. In November 2007, NTL Business was rebranded UPC Business, making it the first part of the company to officially adopt the UPC name. On 29 April 2008 UPC's former Cork Communications cable network, latterly part of Chorus, became the first cable network in Ireland to switch to digital, with the analogue signal (except for the Irish terrestrial channels) switched off. On 4 May 2010 UPC began a €3 million spend on rebranding, completing the change from Chorus:NTL to UPC Ireland. A high-profile media campaign – fronted by broadcaster
Craig Doyle Craig Doyle (born 17 December 1970, Dublin) is an Irish television and radio presenter. To British viewers he is recognisable as working for the BBC and ITV and more recently BT Sport. Irish viewers also know him as the host of RTÉ One cha ...
– was planned to run for 3 months. It also lit up a number of buildings in Dublin (including Busáras and
Boland's Mill Boland's Mill is located on the Grand Canal Dock in Dublin, Ireland on Ringsend Road between the inner basin of Grand Canal Dock and Barrow Street. As of 2019, it was undergoing a €150 million reconstruction to become Bolands Quay, a dev ...
), Galway and Cork. UPC had received the final approvals to acquire assets from broadband rival Broadworks, which was in liquidation. This would give it access to about 6,600 homes in west Dublin and Meath. The Competition Authority cleared the deal on 21 April 2010. On 3 July 2015 it was announced that UPC Ireland had bought the
TV3 Group Virgin Media Television Ltd (formerly known as TV3 Television Network Ltd; previously traded as the TV3 Group until August 2018) is a commercial television company in Ireland, based in Dublin. Launched in 1998 as TV3 Television Network, the ...
for €80 million from
Doughty Hanson Doughty Hanson & Co is a British private equity fund manager focused on leveraged buyout and recapitalization transactions primarily of upper middle-market companies in Europe. The firm also invests opportunistically in European real estate and p ...
, the deal may also deliver a further €7million should TV3 meet certain performance targets. The deal will need regulatory approval by
Competition and Consumer Protection Commission The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) is the Competition regulator in Ireland. It is an Irish state agency established in 2014, combining the previous functions of the Competition Authority and the National Consumer Agency. ...
as well as a media plurality test by the Department of Communications. On 28 August 2015, it was announced that UPC Ireland would be rebranded Virgin Media Ireland. The name change took place on 5 October. In June 2021, it was reported that Liberty Global was seeking to sell Virgin Media Ireland after they merged their British Virgin Media company with that of Telefónica's O2.


Products

Virgin Media Ireland focuses on four key areas; cable television, broadband, mobile and telephone. The company offers broadband internet services using the EuroDOCSIS 3.0 standard as well as a
VoIP Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a method and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet t ...
-based telephone service using
PacketCable PacketCable network is a technology specification defined by the industry consortium CableLabs for using Internet Protocol (IP) networks to deliver multimedia services, such as IP telephony, conferencing, and interactive gaming on a cable televisio ...
. In addition, Virgin Media Ireland offers to business customers standard voice and internet services to more advanced services such as Ethernet LAN extensions, corporate voice services, and high-speed internet. These services are offered to large corporations, public organisations, and small to medium size businesses in Ireland, primarily in
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, Dublin,
Galway Galway ( ; ga, Gaillimh, ) is a city in the West of Ireland, in the province of Connacht, which is the county town of County Galway. It lies on the River Corrib between Lough Corrib and Galway Bay, and is the sixth most populous city on ...
,
Limerick Limerick ( ; ga, Luimneach ) is a western city in Ireland situated within County Limerick. It is in the province of Munster and is located in the Mid-West which comprises part of the Southern Region. With a population of 94,192 at the 2016 ...
, and
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.


Broadband

In May 2010, Virgin Media Ireland announced plans for a 100Mbit/s broadband service which would be offered to home users across its broadband-capable network in the coming months. In December 2010 UPC launched its 100Mb Fibre Power Broadband package, making it the fastest ISP for residential customers in Ireland at the time. In September 2012, UPC increased the maximum speed available to residential customers to 150Mb, while increasing their entry-level speed to 50Mb. Virgin Media now offer 250Mbit/s, 500Mbit/s and 1Gbit/s speeds to residential users.


Mobile

Virgin Mobile launched in October 2015 as a mobile virtual network operator using
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's infrastructure. As of Q3 2020, the market share of Virgin Mobile in Ireland is 2.2%.


Television

The main product offered by Virgin Media Ireland is
cable Cable may refer to: Mechanical * Nautical cable, an assembly of three or more ropes woven against the weave of the ropes, rendering it virtually waterproof * Wire rope, a type of rope that consists of several strands of metal wire laid into a hel ...
television services, in SD and HD digital formats, using DVB-C encrypted using
Nagravision Nagravision (or Nagra Kudelski or simply Nagra) is a company of the Kudelski Group that develops conditional access systems for digital cable and satellite television. The name is also used for their main products, the Nagravision encryption syste ...
. Digital is now available in the vast majority of areas, with the Cork cable network becoming the first in Ireland to become digital-only. On 14 August 2007, UPC launched a
Personal Video Recorder A digital video recorder (DVR) is an electronic device that records video in a digital format to a disk drive, USB flash drive, SD memory card, SSD or other local or networked mass storage device. The term includes set-top boxes with direct to d ...
, the UPC Mediabox, marketed as the Digital+ or Digital+HD Box in ex-NTL areas, subsequently rolled out to other areas. On 5 August 2009 UPC launched its HDTV service in Ireland, which includes many international and regional television broadcasters. In April 2013, UPC launched its Horizon TV service, which allows UPC customers to watch a selection of television channels from various internet enabled devices using their UPC broadband connection. On 12 August 2013, UPC launched a Horizon HD+ set-top box. It offers HD as standard and consolidates all services (TV, broadband and home phone) into one device. It also allows customers to record four television programmes while watching a fifth.


On-Demand TV

On 25 May 2012 UPC Ireland launched its UPC On-Demand TV service in Ireland, with a full roll-out expected to be complete by September. A similar service had already been rolled out to UPC customers in the
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Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
,
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,
Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...
and
Austria Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
. The service provides all customers with unlimited access to
RTÉ Player RTÉ Player is an on demand video service provided by Irish public media broadcaster RTÉ. The service provides live and recorded RTÉ television programmes, and content exclusive to the player as well as content from other international broad ...
and
Virgin Media Player Virgin Media Player (formerly 3Player) is a live streaming and on demand video service available in Ireland, provided by Virgin Media Television (formerly TV3 Group), a subsidiary of Virgin Media Ireland, for programmes broadcast on the compa ...
, with
TG4 Player TG4 ( ga, TG Ceathair, ) is an Irish free-to-air public service television network. The channel launched on 31 October 1996 and is available online and through its on demand service TG4 Player in Ireland and beyond. TG4 was formerly known ...
set to follow suit. Max package customers are also able to watch
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...
,
ITV ITV or iTV may refer to: ITV *Independent Television (ITV), a British television network, consisting of: ** ITV (TV network), a free-to-air national commercial television network covering the United Kingdom, the Isle of Man, and the Channel Islan ...
and US box sets and additional content from the likes of
Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...
,
Food Network Food Network is an American basic cable channel owned by Television Food Network, G.P., a joint venture and general partnership between Warner Bros. Discovery Networks (which holds a 69% ownership stake of the network) and Nexstar Media Group ...
, FX,
History History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...
,
MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...
and
True Movies True Movies was a British free-to-air television channel. It was also distributed in Africa on DStv. It is the first channel from Moving Movies Ltd., majority-owned by CSC Media Group (formerly Chart Show Channels). The channel was dedicated ...
. The video on demand service also allows customers in Ireland to watch classic movies and the latest cinematic releases.


Broadcasting

Virgin Media Ireland operates its own TV division, Virgin Media Television, based in Dublin. As of August 2022, it consists of five television channels: Current channels: *
Virgin Media One Virgin Media One, also called Virgin One, is an Irish free-to-air television channel owned by Virgin Media Ireland (part of Liberty Global), operated through its subsidiary Virgin Media Television. The channel was known until 30 August 20 ...
*
Virgin Media Two Virgin Media Two, also called Virgin Two, is an Irish free-to-air television channel operated by Virgin Media Television (a subsidiary of Virgin Media Ireland). History 2006–2009 Channel 6 was launched on 30 March 2006, then operated by Kis ...
*
Virgin Media Three Virgin Media Three, also called Virgin Three, is an Irish free-to-air television channel owned by Virgin Media Television. The channel was first launched by Northern Irish broadcaster UTV Media on 1 January 2015 as UTV Ireland; it primari ...
*
Virgin Media More Virgin Media More is an Irish television channel from Virgin Media Television. The channel is exclusive to Virgin Media Ireland customers and is not available on other digital television platforms. The channel focuses on broadcasting first see ...
*
Virgin Media Four Virgin Media Four is an Irish television channel from Virgin Media Television. The channel focuses on general entertainment programming from both Ireland and the UK as well as weekly coverage of the NFL. The channel launched on 24 August 202 ...
Former channels: *
Virgin Media Sport Virgin Media Sport (formerly TV3 Sport) is a sports production unit at Virgin Media Television in Ireland which produces specialist sports content for its television channels Virgin Media One, Virgin Media Two, and Virgin Media Three. The depa ...


Subscriptions

As of September 2019, Virgin has 26% of broadband subscriptions. Quarterly Key Data Report Q3 2019
- Commission for Communications Regulation, 12 December 2019


References


External links

*
List of channels on Virgin Media (Ireland)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Upc Ireland Irish companies established in 2005 Cable television companies Internet service providers of the Republic of Ireland Liberty Global Mass media companies of Ireland Telecommunications companies of the Republic of Ireland Virgin Media Mass media companies established in 2005