Virgin Media 2010 Annual Report Download - page 14

High Definition Television
As of December 31, 2010, we offered approximately 250 to 300 hours of HD content on Virgin TV On
Demand, including BBC iPlayer, HD films and a range of HD TV programming such as Sky1 HD, SkyLiving
HD and BBC One HD. Our HD content is available to our DTV and Free TV customers.
Digital Video Recorders
We offer one of the most advanced digital video recorders, or DVRs, in the U.K. Set-top boxes equipped
with DVRs digitally record television programming to a hard disk in real-time, which allows customers to pause
or rewind the program at any point during or after broadcast. The Virgin Media DVR, which is called the
“V+ Box”, is available to our DTV customer base for a premium monthly rental option or an up-front payment as
part of our top tier package. The V+ Box has 160G of hard disk storage space (up to 80 hours of broadcast
television), is HD-enabled and has three tuners, allowing viewers to record two programs while watching a third.
Our V+ Box customers with an HD-compatible television can also access our HD on-demand content. As of
December 31, 2010, we had approximately 1.28 million V+ Box customers, representing approximately 34% of
our digital subscribers.
In 2009, we entered into a strategic partnership with TiVo Inc., or TiVo, to develop a next generation set-top
box which provides converged television and broadband internet capabilities. Under the agreement, TiVo is the
exclusive provider of user interface software for our next generation set-top boxes and we are the exclusive
distributor of TiVo services and technology in the U.K. The Virgin Media TiVo service was launched in
December 2010, with the simultaneous introduction of the TiVo HD/3D set-top box which provides 1 Tb
(approximately 500 hours) for personal recordings. This is the “next generation” entertainment set-top box (with
associated software, including middleware) which brings together television, VOD and web services through a
single set-top box and specialized content discovery and personalization tools. The new TiVo service, combined
with the existing VOD service, make available approximately 4,600 hours of television shows, movies and music
videos.
Fixed Line Telephony
We provide local, national and international telephony services to our residential customers on our cable
network. We offer a basic line rental service to our cable customers for a fixed monthly fee. In addition to basic
line rental, we also offer tiered bundles of features and services, including calling plans that enable customers to
make unlimited national landline calls during specified periods, for an incremental fixed monthly fee. Our
customers may 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. As of
December 31, 2010, we provided cable telephony services to approximately 4.2 million residential subscribers.
Mobile Products and Services
We provide mobile telephony services through Virgin Mobile, a leading mobile virtual network operator in
the U.K. As a mobile virtual network operator, or MVNO, Virgin Mobile provides mobile telephony services to
its customers over cellular networks owned by third parties. Our customer base comprises both pre-pay
customers, who top up their accounts prior to using the services and have no minimum contracted term, and,
increasingly, contract customers, who subscribe to our services for periods ranging from a minimum of 30 days
up to 24 months. As of December 31, 2010, we had approximately 3.1 million mobile telephony customers, of
which approximately 1.2 million were contract customers.
We offer a broad range of mobile communications products and services, including mobile voice services
and data services, such as SMS, picture messaging, games, news and music services. We also offer a broad range
of handsets, including Blackberry, Android and Windows 7 based smartphones, and mobile broadband services
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