Editing Telewest (section)

== Operations ==
[[File:Telewest BL53FSK.jpg|thumb|right|A Telewest [[Opel Vivaro A|Vauxhall Vivaro]] van in [[Plymouth]], Devon (2006)]]
Telewest provided several residential services on its cable network, including:

=== Television ===
The majority of Telewest's television was digital. There were, however, areas that received an analogue service (Slough, Windsor and some areas in west London). Late in its independent existence, Telewest was in the process of converting the remaining analogue areas to digital, and it was expected that the analogue service would cease in 2007.

The digital television service offered a number of different products including true [[video on demand]], a PVR, and HDTV.
* '''On Demand''' (formerly known as Teleport) was the brand name for Telewest's video on demand (VOD) service. The on Demand service launched in 2005. In contrast to [[Sky (United Kingdom)|Sky Digital]] which, due to technical limitations, is only able to provide near VOD services, Teleport is a true VOD system. Users could search through a large library of programmes and watch them when they want to as part of their subscription.

This library included a free seven day watch again feature for television programmes produced by the [[BBC]], [[Channel 4]] and [[Living TV Group|Virgin Media Television]] (formerly known as Flextech). On Demand also offered movies that could be purchased and watched as many times as desired within a twenty four hour period. On Demand also offered HD content that worked in conjunction with the Telewest PVR (now renamed the V+).
* '''HDTV''' Telewest was the first United Kingdom broadcaster to offer [[HDTV]]. Telewest's HDTV service launched several months earlier than that of their chief competitor, Sky Digital.<ref>{{cite magazine | url=https://www.broadcastnow.co.uk/telewest-beats-sky-to-hd-launch/1032894.article | title=Telewest beats Sky to HD launch | magazine=Broadcast Now|access-date=8 June 2022 }}</ref>

Telewest's HD service initially comprised around 10–30&nbsp;hours per week of video on demand content, with no linear high definition television channels available, although the early trial services of BBC HD and ITV HD were carried for a brief time. In January 2006, Telewest started to broadcast HD documentaries such as ''[[The Blue Planet]]'', ''Planet Earth'' and ''Pride'' through their Teleport service, and later broadcast some movies in HD.

Telewest had an agreement with both [[ITV (TV network)|ITV]] and the [[BBC]], and claimed to be the only provider in the United Kingdom to offer all the [[2006 FIFA World Cup]] matches in HD. In reality, however, half of the final group stage matches were not available in HD. Telewest's HD service was provided exclusively through their TV Drive box. Sky launched their HD service in May 2006, initially charging a £300 setup fee and an additional £10/month for several subscription HD channels, including HD versions of Sky One, Sky Movies and Sky Sports. Telewest charged a £75 setup fee and £10/month, although no subscription HD channels were offered. Telewest's fees however included the TV Drive recording service, equivalent to the recording features of the Sky+ service.
* '''[[V+|TV Drive]]''' was the name of Telewest's [[Digital video recorder]] (PVR) service. The product incorporated a 160&nbsp;[[gigabyte]] [[hard drive]] as standard, meaning it was able to store around 80&nbsp;hours of recorded programmes. This was in contrast to BSkyB's [[Sky+]] service which offered only 80&nbsp;gigabytes (40&nbsp;hours). Similarly, Telewest's product incorporated three tuners while Sky's incorporated only two, meaning that Telewest's service could record two channels at the same time while watching a third. A few days ahead of the rebranding to [[Virgin Media]], TV Drive was renamed ''[[V+]]''.

=== Internet ===
Telewest's [[Cable Internet|internet]] service called Blueyonder, formerly branded as Cable Internet, used the cable infrastructure and offered speeds of 2&nbsp;[[Mbit/s]], 4&nbsp;Mbit/s and 10&nbsp;Mbit/s downstream{{cn|date=April 2021}}. The broadband service was 'uncapped', meaning that its use was unlimited and no extra charges were payable related to the amount of data downloaded. The offering included free webspace where customers could create their own websites, which was discontinued for new customers after the rebranding to Virgin Media.<ref>{{Cite web |title=About Webspace |url=https://my.virginmedia.com/customer-news/articles/about-webspace.html |access-date=2024-08-01 |website=my.virginmedia.com}}</ref>

In November 2006, after the merger with NTL, ''[[The Register]]'' reported that [[Bandwidth throttling|subscriber traffic management]] was being trialled in areas of northern England, and would be rolled out nationwide.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.theregister.com/2006/11/21/blueyonder_gets_throttled/ | title=NTL/Telewest admits limiting unlimited web access | work=The Register | date=21 November 2006 | access-date=8 June 2022 | archive-date=9 June 2022 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220609020803/https://www.theregister.com/2006/11/21/blueyonder_gets_throttled/ | url-status=live }}</ref> [[Virgin Media|Blueyonder]] also provided dial-up internet services on a pay-as-you-go tariff, or a fixed monthly fee of £14.99 for unlimited use.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Jackson |first=Mark |title=Telewests Dialup To Broadband Offer |url=https://www.ispreview.co.uk/news/EpAApFlVFuQgrYPlYJ.html |access-date=2025-03-24 |website=ISPreview UK |language=en}}</ref>

=== Telephone ===
* Talk Unlimited
* Talk Evenings and Weekends
* Talk Weekends
Provided landline calls for up to an hour for a fixed fee monthly inclusive of line rental. Telewest were the first{{when|date=February 2013}} landline company in the United Kingdom to offer 'unlimited' calls to landlines for a fixed monthly fee.
* Talk Mobile
Mobile calls with 25% reduction from standard rates.
* Talk International
Similar principle to Talk Mobile, with different reductions to different countries.
* Talk Anywhere
Packages including 200, 400, or 800 minutes of usage per month. Telewest were the first{{when|date=February 2013}} landline company to offer a package of this kind which included bundled minutes every month that could be carried over to the next. It included calls to mobiles, landlines (01 and 02; latterly also 03), businesses with 0845 and 0870 numbers, and specified international mobiles and landlines. It was available nationally, varying in price depending on the number of minutes.