For many of us Telewest is the name behind the TV channels piped into our homes.

The Surrey-based firm is the UK's number two cable TV company, behind NTL. It has about 1m cable TV subscribers, about 1.7m residential phone lines and about 70,000 business phone lines.

But the company has grander plans. It is re-inventing itself, or is that evolving into, a broadband communications company.

Broadband is technology that will speed up the rate at which electronic information can be transferred - allowing for things like faster Internet access and more interactive entertainment.

It is a risky business.

The cable networks that carry the information are expensive to install and Telewest is relying on an unproven demand for the technology in order to realise a profit.

Losses

Over the financial year 1999/2000 the company announced a loss of about �705.6m. It will announce its 2000/2001 figures on 15 November.

Like most of the Telecommunication's market Telewest's shares have suffered a massive decline since early 2000.

On the last day of March of that year its shares closed at a record high 481p. This week they were trading at 49p, down almost 90%.

In the last review of the FTSE100, the company suffered the indignity of being dumped from the list of the UK's 100 biggest companies.

Adam Singer

Telewest's chief executive officer is Adam Singer, 49.

A media man through and through Adam started his career at the BBC before going on to hold positions with media groups Viacom, United Artists and Liberty Media International.

He was a non-executive director of Telewest between November 1995 and March 1998 and was appointed Group chief executive and a director of Telewest in April 2000, when the company completed a merger with Flextech.

Analyst Outlook

Morten Anderson from Deutsche Bank rates Telewest shares a BUY at their current price.

He says concerns over the company's funding have eased following an announcement, on 17 October, that GE Capital would arrange another �125 million to support the business.

He says Telewest's fundamentals are generally healthy and that much of its share price problem has been fuelled by poor sentiment within the telecomms sector, not the company's own faults.