Britain's biggest cable operator, ntl, said today it is "poised for success" after emerging from a debt-for-equity restructuring that has dramatically cut its debt load.

ntl released full-year results for 2002 on Monday; of the plethora of figures released are some important ones for the company as it goes into 2003 after emerging from its restructuring. On the fundamentals, the company increased revenue to £2.173bn, slightly up from £2.17bn in 2001 - while EBITDA, the measure of earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation, rose to £661m from £446m in 2001. These figures take into account certain adjustments made to the figures for 2002's fourth quarter following a capitalisation review.

At the ntl:home division, broadband - as with Telewest - is leading the way, credited with continued rises of average revenue per unit through the year. That measurement now stands at £40.99, up from £40.69 in 2001. As far as total subscribers go, the company has 2.69m on-net customers, including former BT Cable subscribers and those on master antenna television systems. Most importantly of all though, two factors combined that should have a positive effect through 2003; churn dropped from 21.3% in the fourth quarter of 2001 to 15.9% in the fourth quarter of 2002; and ntl says it expects a return to net customer connections in Q1 2003. A declining number of customer disconnections primarily in Q4 2002 resulted in a net disconnection number of 2,000 customers for that quarter; although ntl points out that is the lowest figure in five quarters.

Other important data from ntl:home - ntl ended 2002 with 517,000 broadband customers; by the end of Q1 2003, that figure stood at around 650,000. 60% of TV customers now take a digital TV package.

In the other divisions; ntl Business saw both revenue and EBITDA decline during Q4 2002. The company explained: "The recapitalization process and the general climate for competitive telecoms service providers has had a larger impact on the financial performance of NTL Business than on any other operating division of NTL. The decline in revenue from Carrier Services in particular, is the result of a reduction in business from a number of our customers that are undergoing financial difficulties and restructuring."

Lower capital expenditure played a role in a rise of revenue and EBITDA for the total year at ntl:broadcast - prior to the previously discussed fourth-quarter adjustments. In its results release today, the company mentioned the closure of ITV Digital and some TV stations were "challenges" for the division in 2002.

ntl's Irish operations reported 368,000 customers at year end, although it did say that a "more rigorous credit policy" would result in as many as 25,000 customers being disconnected (net) in 2003. Average revenue per unit stands at £12.38, up from 2001. Cable TV churn declined to 8.3% in Q4 2002 from 13.8% in the previous quarter - another good sign tallying up with the churn reduction in the main ntl:home division.