I am a trader as well as an investor and hopefully this thread will reflect both aspects ....

We should start by saying this is a highly speculative share and the market takes no prisoners.

Over the last 18 months I made lots twice in the early days - then lost it back - bought a million at 2.6p average - founded the TAG - bought another half a million or so at sub 1p - sold most at average 4.25 - bought back at 2.2p and less - sold most at 3.5p and now buying back - overall a good net profit at this time.

I think the d4e will happen (say 90% chance) and the 3% currently talked about will give or should give a price equating to say 3/5p. Longer term on succcess of d4e and progress in the sales market the shares should move to around 10p - assumming markets are not in freefall.

I am looking to buy at any time and hoping for a war generated dip - when I do I will let you know.

The TAG site is a great place for catching up on the TWT news and I will post here as well.

Currently trading on TWT is light (1.7 million traded) and the price is down a littlw with a wide spread (2.01/2.35p). This is a sets share and you must expect a crtain amount of manipulation in these troubled times - FTSE down over 4% intraday

I have a core holding of at least half a million shares and intend to be a long term investor at this time.


ainsoph


http://www.investoraction.co.uk - currently we have 804 registered members holding around 100 million shares in total

I hear what you say hangon and the truest comment you have made is the one concerning 'will we make money from here'. I think we will - the 3% talked about is likely to be the minimum that will apply in a d4e. Our past calculations were based on around a post d4e a share minimum - meaning the current shares would be valued at a minimum 3p. This compares favourably with todays price. Over any period of time I would expect this to increase as markets improved and TWT demonstrated true profitability.

Did we make a difference - have a look aty what MONI shareholders got - half on one percent.

Retail shareholders should take more interest and you are absolutely right in thinking there is a need to get involved early in protecting your investment.

Is the market overcrowded - Not many alternatives to BSkyB but cable is one of them and can also offer broad band - the must have of the near future imho.


ains

Moved up again ..... 275 on the bid now with heavy early morning volume


ains

AINS,

TWT up 12% nice, hoping RED next one up.

Cheers

Ash

I keep hearing about RED - guess I must have a serious look

02/11 08:43
Telewest May Make More Money Than It Spends by Fourth Quarter
By Dex McLuskey


London, Feb. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Telewest Communications Plc, the U.K.'s second-biggest cable-television company, may make more money than it spends by the end of 2003 after cutting costs, Managing Director Charles Burdick said.

The company expects spending on network and equipment in 2003 to be about 100 million pounds ($162.3 million) less than the 450 million pounds it probably spent on its network last year, Burdick said in an interview.

``Our plan says we'll be cash flow positive by mid-2004, but internally we're working toward the end of this year,'' Burdick said. ``It's a combination of good cost control, cutting capital expenditure fairly dramatically and the fact we're not paying interest on 3.5 billion pounds of debt.''

Telewest and NTL Inc., the No. 1 U.K. cable company, amassed about $26 billion of debt building networks and buying rivals to compete with Rupert Murdoch's British Sky Broadcasting Group Plc and BT Group Plc. Telewest will give bondholders 97 percent of the equity in return for all its bonds. NTL bondholders took control after the company reneged on repaying $10.9 billion of debt.

Burdick defined cash flow positive as profit after capital expenditure and interest charges.

The company may merge with NTL to compete with BSkyB, the U.K.'s biggest pay-TV company, and BT in providing faster Internet services, Burdick said. He hasn't discussed a merger with NTL recently, he said.

``I've always been consistent in saying we should merge,'' he said. ``The real battle out there is with BT and BSkyB, so my view has always been, once we figure out the liquidity situation, we should just get on with it.''

Telewest's shares, which have fallen 91 percent in the past year, closed yesterday at 2.5 pence on the London Stock Exchange.

The company may complete its reorganization plan by the end of the first quarter, Burdick said.

``These things always take longer then you think, but I'm hoping we'll be able to send something to our shareholders by the end of the quarter,'' he said.

volumes already over 8 million ...... up 10%



ains

Ainsoph,

Sorry I have changed my log in to Ash, for obvious reasons.
Well done for keeping the thread going with so much data on TWT.

Sorry the point I was making about Redstone Plc is the size of the market cap,if you remember TWT at the 0.65p low was valued at 18.677m market cap.

Now at 2.75p valued at 79.02m, having traded to as high as 136.489m market cap at 4.75p for a 3% of 1,260,000,000 t/o company.

RED is only 15.31m with 10.155m cash per 30.09.2002.

On RED you miss the huge Debt servicing costs, and let us say it got rated at 2.50 to 3 times t/o, based on 75m to 85m, big upside potential IMHO.

Beeson Gregory now their brokers.

I think might be a positioning play before BG hit the streets for RED IMHO.

Cheers

Ash

Anyone interested in joining my TAG please e mail my friend ainsoph at
ainsoph @blueyonder.com,. I cannot accept them myself, for obvious reasons

sounds interesting - as it happens I am very much into evg who now own BG ..... busy right now but will take a long look later this morning .... do I need another Telecom play? :-)) - They do say the sector is coming back in to favour



ains

NTL barraged with broadband complaints

Owen Gibson
Tuesday February 11, 2003


NTL: under fire over broadband limitations

Thousands of NTL subscribers to its high-speed internet access service have deluged the cable company with complaints after it imposed a limit on their use of its so-called "unlimited" service.

Customers are up in arms after NTL changed the terms and conditions of its internet services to limit the amount of music, video and web pages that they can download per day. Since the weekend thousands have deluged internet message boards and NTL chief executive Barclay Knapp with complaints.

The NTHellWorld website, a consumer site bought by NTL last year as part of a drive to improve customer service, has received more than 3,800 comments on the subject since Friday afternoon.

And a dedicated complaints website, www.don't-pay-ntl.co.uk, has also been set up to encourage subscribers to the broadband service not to pay their next bill or switch provider.

"This is an absolute disgrace. What are they on? This will cripple NTL," says one. Another customer labels the move an "outrage" while

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another adds, "I can't believe what I have just read. I have just signed up to broadband and the fact they are limiting it is not right".

According to those affected, the guidelines for the service were changed on Friday without their knowledge. Anyone downloading more than 1Gb of information per day for three days in the same fortnight will be blacklisted and risk having their connection terminated.

One gigabyte, equivalent to 1,024 megabytes, is a lot of information - an entire computer CD-rom takes around 600 megabytes of information.

NTL claimed it has taken the step to stop heavy users slowing down the network for everyone else, and argued that it was equivalent to downloading 20,000 web pages or 10,000 images a day.

"NTL's broadband and dial-up services are intended for normal recreational or educational use by individuals and families and our pricing and network architecture have been designed accordingly. Customers who use the services more heavily than a normal home user will reduce the performance of the network for other customers," it said in response to those who complained.

But broadband users who use their connection to download games, music and video claim that they will reach the new limit in just two and a half hours and are threatening to cancel their subscription and move elsewhere.

NTL has over 500,000 broadband subscribers to its 'Gold' service, which is 20 times faster than normal dial-up web access and its 'Silver' 512kb service, which is 10 times faster. They cost 35 per month and 25 per month respectively.

The uprising will worry NTL executives planning to make broadband the cornerstone of its "triple play" telephone, television and high speed internet proposition, which they hope will tempt customers away from Sky.

NTL chief executive Barclay Knapp said the move would not affect the vast majority of subscribers.

"We felt it was important to remind our customers of this policy as we were seeing a small but growing proportion of very heavy users sometimes degrading the service across the board for everyone - and some who abuse the service by, among other things, hosting commercial web sites from their homes," said Mr Knapp, who has recently led the company through a financial restructuring to halve its 12bn debt.

"Broadband is still in its early days as a technology, and we are trying very hard to find the right balance between service and cost so that our service can be truly universal," he added in an email to customers.

"NTL broadband is a good service and we want to keep it that way for all of our customers. It will not affect 99% of our customers. People can still surf for 24hours a day if they want to," added an NTL spokesman, saying that it planned to set up a "heavy users" group with those that had complained to try to find a way around the problem.

City first for broadband

EDWARD BLACK


EDINBURGH has topped a league of internet surfers with the Capital proving the most popular spot for high-speed internet use, according to new research.

The findings, from Telewest Broadband, indicate that as internet take-up develops in the UK, its Blueyonder broadband service is proving the most popular in Edinburgh.

Chad Raube, the director of internet services at Telewest Broadband, said the trend reflected the citys enthusiasm for things new.

He said: "Edinburgh, with its tradition for innovation, has enthusiastically adopted broadband from the off. We trialled our 1Mb broadband internet service in Edinburgh last year and the feedback we received was tremendous.

"By focusing on quality and consistently innovating, Blueyonder provides one of the best value residential broadband services in the UK today.

"Within our franchise areas, more people are taking Blueyonder than any other broadband provider."

According to researchers, broadband allows consumers to surf the internet up to 20 times faster than a traditional dial-up connection, without having to use a telephone line.

The service also allows people to download movies and music in an instant, send e-mails with large attachments and play games online with friends.

The south-west region of England, which includes Bristol, and the south-east of England follow closely behind Edinburgh in the league.

Telewest Communications is a communications and media group whose cables pass by 4.9 million homes and which provides a range of other services to 1.76 million houses.

The survey discovered that 8.1 per cent of homes in Edinburgh had adopted the Blueyonder broadband internet service as opposed to 8 and 7.2 per cent in the south-west and south-east of England respectively.

I am sue it will happen but over a longer time scale

ains


NTL and Telewest could merge next year

Owen Gibson
Tuesday February 11, 2003


Telewest: set to emerge from a financial restructure later this year

Telewest chief Charles Burdick has for the first time laid out a timetable for merging his company with rival NTL, predicting it could happen early next year.
Mr Burdick, who took over as managing director last year from former chief executive Adam Singer, predicted Telewest would emerge from a financial restructure in the second quarter of 2003, break even by the fourth quarter and possibly merge with NTL soon afterwards.

"Our plans show the second quarter of 2004 as cash-flow positive but I have the team focused on internal targets that move that up to the fourth quarter of 2003," he said.

"If Telewest meets that target, it will be the first cable company in the world to turn cash-flow positive."

NTL's recent debt for equity swap halved its 12bn debt and Telewest expects to emerge from a similar restructure, having halved its 5.3bn debt.

However, Telewest still has a few minor hurdles to clear with creditors and is relying on a 2.2bn bank loan agreed in January to see

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it through.

It would leave both companies free to complete the cycle of consolidation that has characterised the cable industry for the past decade but has left it with huge debts and playing catch up with a dominant BSkyB.

Telewest and NTL have admitted a merger would be a logical step in enabling them to compete with BSkyB and the two firms already work together in various marketing and sales capacities. However, they been hamstrung by their huge debts.

The only remaining stumbling block to a merger would be deciding which company takes management control. Mr Burdick insisted that, although smaller, Telewest would be in a stronger position.

"Look at the continuity of management at Telewest. We haven't done a major acquisition for three years and our restructure was much less disruptive to the organisation than theirs. So most people say we are in much better shape," he told the Wall Street Journal today.

In the last two quarters NTL's and Telewest's subscriber numbers have fallen, with the latter losing 25,000 customers.

"We've stood still for about six quarters but its not irreparable damage," said Mr Burdick, adding the company's focus would be on pushing its broadband service, which has 250,000 subscribers.

"I see a world where there's literally 100% broadband penetration in 10 years because of educational tools for kids, working at home, file sharing, music downloads and games," he said.

"All these are going to appeal to different niches in the population."

AFX-Focus) 2003-02-11 13:13 GMT: Telewest says to turn cashflow positive by year end, sees 2004 merger with NTL
LONDON (AFX) - Telewest Communications PLC said it is aiming to turn cashflow positive by the end of this year, six months ahead of its original forecast.
The company also attached a date of 2004, for the first time, for when it may merge with the UK's largest cable operator NTL Inc.

"The plans show we will be cash flow positive in the second quarter of 2004 but we have the team focused on internal targets for the end of this year," said a company spokeswoman.

The company will achieve these goals through tight cost control, pushing growth in broadband customers and cutting 100 mln stg from 450 mln stg earmarked for 2003.

Telewest expects to come out of a complex financial restructuring in the second quarter.

In August the group was forced, by a mountain of debt run up from building its cable network, to unveil a plan to swap 3.5 bln stg of its 5.3 bln stg debt for equity.

Analysts and investors have said, for at least a year, that once Telewest and NTL had rid themselves of debt a merger would be logical.

We have said that it makes sense to merge once both parties have come out of restructuring," said the spokeswoman.

"But it's not going to be a mad rush," she added.

NTL has only just emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US after agreeing terms of an 11 bln usd debt-for-equity swap.

A merger with NTL would enable the combined group to take on the dominant satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting in pay-TV and BT Group PLC in broadband internet.

There would also be cost-savings to come from joining forces.

Telewest shares have fallen from 75 pence in December to 2.5 pence on the back of news the group's debt-for-equity swap would leave shareholders with just 3 pct of the company.

At the height of the boom in TMT stocks three years ago, Telewest was worth more than 14 bln stg, compared with just 20 mln stg today.

Chief executive Adam Singer resigned last year and former finance director Charles Burdick took over.

In the last two quarters Telewest has seen net subscribers fall by a total of 25,000.

But Telewest had about 250,000 broadband subscribers in November and new subscribers are signing up at a rate of around 50,000 a quarter.

tf/jc



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Fair old volume @ over 20 million and a long time since we saw 3p on the offer



ains

More ISPs 'to impose download limits'
14:21 Tuesday 11th February 2003
Graeme Wearden


With broadband networks increasingly 'swamped' by P2P traffic, experts predict that by the end of the year most ISPs will limit how much data users can download
The widespread and growing use of peer-to-peer networks is likely to force broadband operators to restrict the amount of data their subscribers are allowed to download, according to analyst group Jupiter Research.

Jupiter Research warned this week that file sharing is growing "at a phenomenal rate", and that the sheer volume of music and movie files being transferred between users is putting a huge burden on broadband service providers.

According to Jupiter, some broadband ISPs are finding that over 50 percent of the traffic on their networks is caused by P2P file-sharing.

"Although not the only factor in driving Internet users to broadband, file-sharing has proven to be broadband's first 'killer application,'" said Dan Stevenson, analyst at Jupiter Research, in a research note. "As well as being a big problem for record labels and the Hollywood studios alike, Internet service providers are beginning to suffer too -- under the heavy weight that file-sharing imposes on their networks."

As a result of the increased traffic, these operators will probably be forced to limit the amount of data its broadband customers are allowed to download from the Net. Should they exceed this limit, they will be charged extra.

"Not wanting to take on the file-sharing networks in court, the best solution for broadband service providers to address this issue would be to impose monthly data limits on their subscribers," Stevenson advised.

Jupiter predicts that by the end of 2003 such data limits will be "the rule, not the exception."

Such a move is likely to prove unpopular with broadband users, though, who are likely to feel that data limits are at odds with the idea of an unlimited, always-on service.

NTL caused a large amount of controversy over the last few days after introducing data limits for its broadband service. It plans to target people who regularly download more than 1GB of data per day.

Back in October 2001, BT also caused a storm of protest when it blocked the ports used by some peer-to-peer applications. It said the move was an attempt to ensure it offered a decent service for all users, but did back down after many customers complained.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Telewest and NTL eye merger as profitability approaches

London, February 11 2003, (netimperative)



by Richard Agnew

UK cable operators Telewest and NTL could be set to merge early next year if their respective refinancing programmes go according to plan.


Telewest MD Charles Burdick said the long-awaited move may go ahead if his firm emerges from financial restructuring and reaches break even by the fourth quarter of this year as planned.

Both firms, which operate in different geographical areas and have cooperated on marketing initiatives, have in the past admitted that a merger could allow them to consolidate and compete more effectively with major rivals BT and BSkyB.

But Telewest is now reliant on a 2.2bn bank loan it gained last month for funds, and it has yet to be decided which firm's management would take control. NTL, which declined to comment, has also just completed a similar deal to cut the 12bn it owed.

Burdick told the Wall Street Journal today that Telewest, once it has finalised a deal with its creditors to halve its 5.3bn debt and reduced interest payments, is now concentrating on reaching a positive cash-flow position by Q4 this year, and the merger could follow shortly after.

He said: "Our plans show the second quarter of 2004 as cash-flow positive but I have the team focused on internal targets that move that up to the fourth quarter of 2003. If Telewest meets that target, it will be the first cable company in the world to turn cash-flow positive."

Users call for anti-NTL protest
By Tim Richardson
Posted: 11/02/2003 at 16:30 GMT


Angry NTL customers are trying to drum up support for a public demonstration of defiance against the cableco following its decision to cap its broadband service.

Some are calling for a "mass cancellation" of their service on Valentine's Day (this Friday) while others want to use the day simply to disconnect from the service in a bid to register their dissatisfaction.

Either way, the newsgroups are buzzing with suggestions about how to make NTL understand the unrest felt by its broadband customers.

They include:


A public demonstration outside NTL's offices

Withholding payment

Massively exceeding the 1 gig a day limit but ensuring that this does not breach guidelines that say people will only be targeted if they exceed the daily data limit for three or more days in any consecutive 14-day period.

At the moment, there doesn't appear to be any co-ordinated campaign of action that would cement the opposition to NTL's decision to cap the service.

Instead, many people have taken their own decision by cancelling or downgrading their services in protest at the move.

Others have complained to Oftel, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and the BBC's flagship consumer affair programme Watchdog. There have even been calls for the resignation of senior execs at NTL over the affair.

It's clear that NTL has badly misjudged opposition to this move.

Oh dear.....just looked in on ADVFN. The teachers have left and the kids are wrecking the classroom.

regards

There you go ..... look in here for my thoughts on current situation later



Cash-in by cable SUN
TELEWEST, Britains biggest TV and phone cable company, expects to be generating cash by the end of the year.

This is six months earlier than planned.

Telewest, which has 1.3million cable TV and 1.6million phone customers, also expects to complete a financial reorganisation by the end of June.

Managing director Charles Burdick said the company could merge with rival NTL next year, again earlier than expected. The shares rose 0.25p to 2.75.

The Herald


Telewest raises possibility of merger with NTL
MARK SMITH
CHARLES Burdick, managing director of financially troubled cable firm Telewest, yesterday said the company may merge with rival NTL, the UK's largest cable operator, at the beginning of 2004.

NTL, which emerged from a debt-restructuring and Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month, declined to comment on Burdick's remarks in the European edition of the Wall Street Journal.

Both companies have had a rough ride in recent years.

Telewest, like Nasdaq-traded NTL before it, fell victim to debts accumulated during 1990s expansion drives.

Telewest, the UK's second-largest cable firm which employs about 1000 people in Scotland, said it expects to emerge from a 3.5bn debt-for-equity swap in the second quarter as it tries to get approval from all its creditors for the plan.

Both Telewest and NTL have said that a merger would be logical as the two companies attempt to compete with satellite television operator BSkyB and with BT.

-Feb 12th






Scotsman

Telewest may see black in 2003


TELEWEST, the UKs second largest cable-TV company, may make more money than it spends by the end of 2003 after cutting costs, according to managing director Charles Burdick.

The company expects spending on network and equipment in 2003 to be about 100 million, less than the 450 million it spent last year, Burdick said. Telewest may still merge with larger cable-TV company NTL, he added.

"Our plan says well be cash-flow positive by mid-2004, but were working toward the end of this year. It is a combination of cost control, cutting capital expenditure and were not paying interest on 3.5 bn of debt." Telewest and NTL amassed about $26 billion (16 bn) of debt between them building networks and buying rivals.