Internet and phone provider TalkTalk ( AOL UK , Tiscali , Opal ) has released its latest preliminary financial results to the end of March 2011 (Q4) and reported yet another decline in its broadband ISP subscriber base from 4,224,000 in the previous quarter to 4,199,000 now (-25,000).

The outcome is hardly surprising as lately TalkTalk has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, most of which can be traced back to its acquisition of Tiscali. Since then they've had to put up with an investigation into mis-selling (here), huge email migration woes (here) and concern over their "stalking" of customer website visits.

The ISP was also recently forced to pay out £2.5m after 62,000 of their customers were found to have been incorrectly billed (here). Not to mention topping an Ofcom list of the most complained about telecoms firms (here). It's little wonder that they've been bleeding so many subscribers.


TalkTalk does at least admit that it expects broadband customer numbers to be broadly flat throughout the year, although it hopes "to exit the year with positive broadband customer net additions, leaving the base broadly flat over the year, with further unbundling improving the customer mix and driving higher ARPU."

At present 86% of TalkTalk's broadband customers are using the groups cheaper unbundled ( LLU ) platform (up from 85% last quarter), which covers over 80% of the UK population. TalkTalk is rolling-out its network to an additional 700 exchanges, which will make the service available to 93% (2,700 exchanges) of the population. At the time of writing TalkTalk had achieved total network coverage of 2,007 exchanges.

The good news is that their new 'up to' 40Mbps Fibre Broadband Boost service, which will be based off BT's FTTC technology, is about to launch between now and the end of May 2011. It will be available to existing customers for an additional fee of +£10 extra per month (one-off activation fee of £25).

That's important because BT and Virgin Media have been busy attracting new customers with their ability to offer superfast broadband connectivity, which other big rivals like Orange , O2 and Sky Broadband have been slow to match (not entirely their fault as they've been waiting for a more flexible wholesale FTTC product).

Meanwhile their plans to launch a broadband TV service - TalkTalk TV - have suffered as a result of the wider delays to the underpinning YouView (Project Canvas) system that will not now see the light of day until early 2012.

TalkTalk is also still working with Sky Broadband to trial their own 100Mbps fibre optic FTTH broadband service with 3,600 homes in North-West London. This is separate from their new partnership with Fujitsu, Virgin Media and Cisco to deliver a new superfast fibre optic broadband network that could reach 5 Million homes in rural areas (here). The future looks more promising than the past.