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by Mike Masnick


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Virgin Finally Does The Deed With NTL

from the can't-avoid-the-puns dept

Some folks weren't so thrilled with the easy and obvious puns served up during the all-too-long and all-too-public saga of NTL and Virgin Mobile in the UK trying to merge, but now that it's finally happening, four months after initially rumored, it's still a bit difficult to avoid them. In the meantime, though, while plenty of folks in the press prattle on about how this creates a "quadruple play" (or whatever they want to call it) solution in the UK, remember that there are plenty of reasons to be skeptical. The true future opportunity of connecting all these various services comes from doing it all over a single pipe -- with wireless being the true holy grail in this race. That's a problem, because the combined NTL/Virgin Mobile is actually missing the most interesting and most compelling part of the equation, since Virgin's wireless network isn't actually its own.

5 Comments | Leave a Comment..

 

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  1. wireless network...

    by AnarChaos - Apr 4th, 2006 @ 5:29am

    Is anyone really surprised?? Lots of wireless companies lease or piggyback signal from/over another network.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  2. Re: wireless network...

    by discojohnson - Apr 4th, 2006 @ 5:46am

    this could be problematic later. now what someone over there needs to do is do the same thing--with a catch: the new provider is a provider for virgin mobile...and virgin doesn't get a contract renewal.

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  3. heh

    by Dan - Apr 4th, 2006 @ 9:55am

    nice headline!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  4. Wireless

    by Aldoliel - Apr 4th, 2006 @ 10:14am

    While many companies in the US may lease or piggyback on another network, this practice isn't nearly as common in the UK (though it has increased in recent years). There are probably only 7 or 8 so called "virtual" providers compared to the 4 real providers (only two of which actually lease network to other "virtual" providers)

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

  5. HA HA HA HA HA

    by Sprint Employee - Apr 4th, 2006 @ 11:51am

    WE ARE TAKING OVER THE WORLD!!!!!! HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!!

    (reply to this comment) (link to this comment)

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