Utility Firm Spark Acquires UK Broadband ISP Home Telecom

Sussex-based ISP Home Telecom has been gobbled by energy and telecoms provider Spark (Spark Energy) for an undisclosed sum. Spark itself only entered the United Kingdom’s crowded and aggressively competitive broadband market during 2014.

Spark tends to focus on the private tenanted property (lettings) sector and so their move to gobble Home Telecom could perhaps signal a desire to expand their reach, although their press release suggests that they’ll continue to focus on tenant customers instead.

The deal will also see Global 4 Communications, which had been providing customer service and tech support to Home Telecom, continue with their relationship under the new owner.

Chris Gauld, Spark CEO, said:

“As the only energy supply company built around the needs of property managers, landlords and their tenants, we’ve been successful in growing a utilities solution to a national scale saving time, hassle and money for our all of our customers and partners along the way.

I am keen to build on those strong foundations not only by investing in continued growth and improvement of our core products and service, but by bringing more products and services to our current and future customers. We believe we can do more to help our partners improve their service and reduce their costs and to offer better experience for the millions of people renting in the UK.

With this acquisition, we are strengthening our offering, creating more reasons for customers to join and stay with Spark and adding further value to our letting agent, social housing and property aggregator clients.

Home Telecom is a perfect fit for us, creating the only genuine multi-utility company for tenant customers. With Fast Track connection, contracts tailored to lease lengths, exclusive Sky TV offers and competitive packages, we couldn’t be in a better position to continue our growth.”

The deal itself was actually done during mid-May 2017, although sadly we’ve only just heard about it today.