Ziggo

Ziggo Holding B.V.
Private
Industry Telecommunications
Founded 16 May 2008
Headquarters Utrecht, Netherlands
Key people
 Baptiest Coopmans (CEO)
Products Cable television
Digital television
Internet
Telephony
Mobile Telephony
Revenue Increase € 1,564.8 million (2013)[1]
Increase € 347.3 million (2013)[1]
Owner
Number of employees
 2,571 FTE (2013 avg.)[1]
Parent VodafoneZiggo[2]
(joint venture between Liberty Global and Vodafone)
Website ziggo.nl

Ziggo is the largest cable operator in the Netherlands, providing cable television (digital and analog), Internet, and telephone service to both residential and commercial customers.[3]

History

The company is the result of the merger between Multikabel, @Home Network, and Casema and launched officially on 16 May 2008. Later followed by a merger with UPC Nederland in the first quarter of 2015, at that time the second largest cable company in the Netherlands. It kept the brand name Ziggo. Its main competitors are KPN and CanalDigitaal.

Most of the share capital was up to 2012 held by holding companies of two private equity firms: Cinven and Warburg Pincus.[4]

On 21 March 2012, Ziggo was listed on the NYSE Euronext stock exchange and later incorporated into the midcap equity AMX index. Additionally, there are options traded on the Ziggo share.

Cinven and Warburg Pincus started to reduce their stake in Ziggo and exited Ziggo in April 2013.[5][6][7]

In March 2013 Liberty Global acquired a 12.65% stake in Ziggo.[8] This increased to 15% in April and 28.5% in July.[9] On 27 January 2014 Liberty Global announced that it would be acquiring all remaining shares in Ziggo for € 10 billion.[10] The takeover was subject to regulatory approval and was expected to close by the second quarter of 2014, when Ziggo was expected to merge with UPC Nederland.[11] In May 2014 the European Commission announced opening an in-depth investigation to assess whether the proposed acquisition of Ziggo by Liberty Global is in line with the EU Merger Regulation.[12] The opening of an in-depth inquiry does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation. In November 2014 Liberty Global took over Ziggo. In December 2014 the shares of Ziggo N.V. were delisted from Euronext Amsterdam as Ziggo was converted into the Dutch private limited company (besloten vennootschap) Ziggo Holding B.V.[13] On 5 January 2015 Ziggo started to harmonize its cable network with the UPC Nederland cable network. The name UPC was finally phased out in favor of Ziggo on 13 April 2015.[14]

On 15 February 2016, British telecommunications company Vodafone announced the merger of their Dutch operations Vodafone Netherlands with Liberty Global, the owner of Ziggo.[2] The deal was closed on 31 December,[15] creating a new parent company for both Ziggo and Vodafone, called VodafoneZiggo, with a 50/50 joint ownership by Liberty Global and Vodafone.[16]

Cable television

In 2014 the Ziggo cable network passed 6.983 million homes in the Netherlands.[17]

Ziggo offers analog and digital cable television to 4.089 million subscribers of which 3.321 million watch digital.[18] In recent years the number of analogue channels has been reduced to make more bandwidth available for digital HD channels.

Analogue and digital

Ziggo provides about 200 television channels including about 55 in HD[19] and also more than 100 radio channels,[20] DVR service, video-on-demand content, catch-up TV from public television broadcasters and commercial television stations and interactive television using the DVB-C specification. At the moment Ziggo uses both the Nagravision and Irdeto conditional access system. Nevertheless, about 40 TV channels and also 40 radio channels are transmitted in clear (unencrypted).[21]

Basic service is called Kabel TV [22] and includes both analogue and digital channels, consists of about 40 digital (including 5 HD) and 25 analogue television channels, as well as 40 digital radio channels. It consists of all the major Dutch networks and some of the main networks of neighbouring countries. Additional TV and radio channels are available through "TV Standard", "Movies & Series XL" and premium packages. Every additional package comes with Stingray Music which offers 35 additional radio channels, as well as interactive video on demand services.

High-definition

Ziggo offers about 55 HD channels including National Geographic HD, Discovery HD & History HD. Also including premium film and sport services such as Film1 HD, Fox Sports HD and Ziggo Sport Totaal HD. The rest are part of basic service.

On 4 July 2009 the Dutch public broadcaster NPO started simulcasting NPO 1, NPO 2, and NPO 3 in 1080i high-definition.[23] These public HD channels are part of basic service.

In the early stages most of the programming consisted of upscaled versions of their SD counterparts. In time more programs became available in HD.

Technology

The digital television signal is transmitted in the DVB-C standard. The high-definition channels are encoded in H.264/MPEG-4 AVC and most standard-definition channels are encoded in MPEG-4. Only the FTC standard-definition channels are still encoded in MPEG-2.[24] Customers can buy or rent a certified set-top box or Integrated Digital Television with embedded CA. Additionally customers can buy any television or set-top box with a DVB-C tuner for the free-to-cable basic subscription and optionally included by CI+ support with a Ziggo compatible conditional-access module for supplemental packages.

Internet

As of December 2015, Ziggo has 3.101 million Internet access subscribers.[18]

With the introduction of EuroDOCSIS 3.0 across the Internet network download speeds have been increased up to 200 Mbit/s except in areas where the network has not been adapted to the EuroDOCSIS 3.0 standard. The latest general speed increase was in March 2015.

Telephony

Ziggo Dome indoor arena in Amsterdam

As of December 2015, Ziggo has 2.538 million subscribers to their land-line telephone services.[18] It also offered a virtual mobile phone service. Ziggo Mobile stopped offering new subscriptions in April 2017,[25] while existing customers will be migrated to Vodafone Netherlands in September 2017.[26]

Triple play

At the end of 2015 Ziggo had 2.478 million triple play subscribers which have a cable television, internet and telephone service bundle.[18]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Ziggo Bond Company B.V. (2014). "Ziggo NV Annual Report 2013" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-04-15.
  2. 1 2 3 4 "Liberty Global and Vodafone to merge their Dutch operations". Vodafone. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  3. ↑ Gertjan Groen (2008-01-29). "Kabelbedrijf Zesko verder onder de naam Ziggo". Telecomwereld.nl (in Dutch). Retrieved 2008-05-15.
  4. ↑ "Ziggo Investor Relations". Ziggo.com. Retrieved 2011-12-23.
  5. ↑ Cinven and Warburg Pincus plan to further reduce stake in Ziggo N.V.
  6. ↑ Cinven and Warburg Pincus have further reduced stake in Ziggo N.V.
  7. ↑ Briel, Robert (2013-04-29). "Cinven, Warburg Pincus exit Ziggo". Broadband TV News. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  8. ↑ Briel, Robert (2013-03-28). "Liberty Global acquires 12.65% stake in Ziggo". Broadband TV News. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  9. ↑ Briel, Robert (2013-07-28). "Liberty Global increases stake in Ziggo to 28.5%". Broadband TV News. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  10. ↑ "Liberty Global to Acquire Ziggo Strategic combination creates national Dutch cable operator" (PDF). Ziggo.com. 2014-01-26. Retrieved 2014-01-26.
  11. ↑ Briel, Robert (2014-01-27). "Liberty Global to acquire Ziggo for €10bn". Broadband TV News. Retrieved 2014-01-27.
  12. ↑ Briel, EC Press Release (2014-05-18). "Mergers: Commission opens in-depth investigation into proposed acquisition of Dutch cable operator Ziggo by Liberty Global". European Commissions. Retrieved 2014-05-18.
  13. ↑ Ziggo completes delisting and converts to a Dutch private limited company
  14. ↑ "UPC en Ziggo nu samen als Ziggo verder". TotaalTV.nl. 2015-04-13.
  15. ↑ "Joint venture VodafoneZiggo afgerond". Het Financieele Dagblad. Retrieved 1 January 2017.
  16. ↑ "Liberty Global and Vodafone complete Dutch joint venture, creating a fully-converged national communications operator". VodafoneZiggo. 31 December 2016.
  17. ↑ "Liberty Global Reports Fiscal 2014 Results" (PDF). Liberty Global.
  18. 1 2 3 4 "Ziggo Q4 sales down 3.8%, loses 51,300 customers". Telecompaper.com.
  19. ↑ Ziggo. "Zenderoverzicht TV" (in Dutch). Ziggo. Retrieved 2016-09-29.
  20. ↑ Ziggo. "Zenderoverzicht Radio" (in Dutch). Ziggo. Retrieved 2015-02-05.
  21. ↑ Ziggo. "Zenderoverzicht TV nieuw" (in Dutch). Ziggo. Retrieved 2015-02-05.
  22. ↑ Ziggo. ""Abonnementen digitale televisie van Ziggo" (in Dutch). Ziggo. Retrieved 2015-05-04.
  23. ↑ JK (2009-06-16). "Nederlandse Publieke Omroep dicht bij start HDTV". TotaalTV (in Dutch). SBS Broadcasting. Retrieved 2009-06-03.
  24. ↑ Jarco Kriek (1 March 2017). "Zenderaanpassingen bij Ziggo" (in Dutch). Totaal TV.
  25. ↑ Sander Almekinders (18 April 2017). (in Dutch). TechZine https://www.techzine.nl/nieuws/106262/ziggo-verkoopt-geen-eigen-mobiele-abonnementen-meer.html. Missing or empty |title= (help)
  26. ↑ Olaf van Miltenburg (28 July 2017). "Ziggo zet Ziggo Mobiel-klanten vanaf september over naar Vodafone" [Ziggo to transfer Ziggo Mobile customers to Vodafone in September]. Tweakers (in Dutch).
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