Mixed Signals
Any sufficiently advanced information is indistinguishable from noise
Friday 11 May 2001, 4:00 PM
Rupert Goodwins' Diary
Thursday 10/05/2001
Telewest continues to make me feel uneasy. It's a cable company, right? And cable companies are notoriously clueless, right? So last week's price cut -- bringing the 512k cable modem service down to £25 a week -- wasn't the sort of thing you'd expect.
This week, it gets more unsettling. The company is looking at a similar sort of deal for telephones, where £25 a month will get you unlimited local and national calls, 24 hours a day. Put the two together and it still costs the same as BT is charging for broadband access alone.
Will this work? If it works, will Telewest cope with demand while maintaining cash flow? If it works and the company is successful in all respects, will it cause BT and others to come chasing with axes in their hands?
In commerce -- especially telecomms commerce -- nothing is certain any more. But I'm jolly glad that Telewest is striking out.
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