Infrastructure company Arqiva plans 250 layoffs

Arqiva, the company that runs the UK's broadcasting infrastructure, is to lay off 250 workers, staff were told this week.

The company's satellite and terrestrial broadcast divisions are being merged, and the wireless-access division is being renamed as 'Government, Mobile and Enterprise', Arqiva spokesman Bruce Randall told ZDNet UK on Friday.

The redundancies are partly a result of the broadcast unit consolidation and partly because of the merger between Arqiva — formerly NTL Broadcast — and National Grid Wireless in 2008, Randall said.

Randall said there are still "overlapping processes and procedures" stemming from that merger, as well as "certain posts that were duplicated". He said the reorganisation was also an attempt to make Arqiva "more market facing than product based".

A 90-day consultation period began on 11 October. According to Randall, by 10 January, "everybody will know what's what with jobs and which posts are going". He refused to say how many of the 250 sacked employees were likely to be engineers or IT workers.

Apart from Arqiva's work on broadcasting kit, the company is also a key player in YouView, the upcoming IP-enabled catch-up TV service. Arqiva is also joining forces with BT and Detica to enter the smart-meter market.