BT Vision rising as the UK’s leading pay-TV service

The Internet is more than just for doing business or for connecting with new people and old acquaintances. Depending on what you use it for or are searching for, you will find that it’s a vault containing a huge expanse of valuable and sometimes hard-to-find information. It’s also a hub for online entertainment where users can stream television shows, music videos, movies, music, and play games online.

However, these come with a price: not just for the service or subscription itself, but also for the excessive bandwidth that some of these activities may consume. OnLive is a popular online game streaming service that allows users to play their selection of games on devices such as the PC, Mac, iPad, Android and HDTV. It’s also known to consume huge amounts of data in the process–even as much as 20GBs in a matter of 6 hours. The service was launched in partnership with BT Broadband, one of the leading providers in the UK.

Aside from penetrating the gaming service, BT has also delved into the online pay-TV business with the launch of BT Vision in 2007. One of the toughest competitors that the provider has faced in the industry is BSkyB, who has consistently garnered high ratings from satisfied users and customers. However, BT was pleased to announce that they saw an increase of 41,000 in the third quarter of 2011 alone, which was a markedly strong performance as BSkyB only reported an increase of 26,000 subscribers. This was the first time that BT Vision surpassed BSkyB in terms of pay-TV subscribers ever since it was launched.

Ian Livingston, BT Broadband’s chief executive, welcomed the news with cautious undertones, stating: “We have increased cash flow, profits and underlying revenue in the quarter. Our performance in the quarter reinforces but does not change our outlook for the year.”

BT Vision currently has 638,000 customers compared to BSkyB’s 10 million users and Virgin Media’s 3.76 million cable subscribers. However, BT’s customer base is continuously growing, and the news was greeted warmly by many investors.

BT Broadband had announced earlier this week that they were going to complete the deployment of their new fibre broadband service by 2014, which was a year ahead of schedule. This will allow customers to access TV and video on demand at higher speeds and with fewer interruptions and waiting times.

Livingston expressed his optimism for the future of BT despite the bleak economic outlook, adding: “We expect to continue to offset the economic headwinds through improved customer service and processes, better efficiency, and investment in the future of the business. This strategy and our financial results allow us to invest when others are merely talking about it.”

Source – The Guardian