ISP Onecom Acquires the UK Customer Base of True Telecom

Business ISP Onecom has today confirmed that they’ve acquired some 3,000 customers from troubled broadband and phone provider True Telecom, which entered administration during November 2017 (here) after a series of fines and financial troubles hit the company.

Last year Ofcom slapped True Telecom with a fine of £300,000 for mis-selling their landline telephone services to over 100 people (here), which is on top of the £85,000 that the ICO had separately demanded after they caught the ISP “making illegal nuisance calls” that gave “the impression they were from BT” (here). On top of that a report from the ISP’s administrators recently revealed that HMRC had sought £722,916 from the provider as part of a winding-up petition (here).

Suffice to say that True Telecom had been left in the bit of a pickle by its management. The administrators ultimately found that the best solution was to sell off their customer base and happily business ISP Onecom has now agreed to purchase it for an undisclosed sum.

Darren Ridge, CEO of Onecom, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“This deal ends a period of uncertainty for True Telecom customers, whilst delivering a significant volume of fixed-line and broadband accounts to our business.

It is our intention to support True Telecom customers to the very best of our ability in order to provide them with the value and quality of offering that have become synonymous with Onecom over the years. Those joining us will immediately benefit from Onecom’s award-winning customer service and Unified Communications expertise.”

Onecom manages more than 325,000 mobile connections (they’re currently Vodafone UK’s largest partner), while they’ve also been busy growing through a combination of organic growth and strategic acquisition. As a result the new owner hopes that the addition of True Telecom’s remaining customers will help them as they head towards their target of becoming a £100m turnover business.

Interestingly Onecom and True Telecom also have something else in common; both providers have been hit with fines from the ICO. Last year Onecom was charged £100,000 (here) after they “broke the law” by sending millions of SPAM texts concerning mobile phone upgrades (triggering 1,050 complaints from the public).