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ISP News Archives for January 21, 2021

 
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CMA Probe Fears Higher Prices After O2 and Virgin Media Merger

21st Jan 2021 (19 Comments)

The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published an ‘issues statement‘ on the proposed £31bn merger between mobile operator O2 and broadband ISP (inc. TV, phone) Virgin Media, which highlights the authority’s two main concerns – the risk of higher consumer prices and worse 5G connectivity for rivals.

ISP Pure Broadband Joins Cityfibre’s UK Full Fibre Network

21st Jan 2021 (13 Comments)

UK ISP Pure Broadband has today become the latest provider to join Cityfibre’s growing national Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network, which will enable them to take a wholesale service and thus launch gigabit-capable internet packages across a number of initial UK towns and cities during early 2021.

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Giffgaff UK Boost 5G Mobile Data Allowances, Hikes PAYG Price

21st Jan 2021 (16 Comments)

Mobile operator giffgaff has announced that they will soon be boosting the data (mobile broadband) allowances on some of their plans and as part of that they’ll also launch two new 5G ready “golden goodybag” plans. But it’s not all good news as the operator is doubling the price of data usage on their Pay As You Go (PAYG) service.

Mobile giant Vodafone UK and Sky (Comcast) have reportedly two among several "groups" that have approached budget conscious fixed broadband ISP TalkTalk about a potential deal (most likely an acquisition), which in theory could create a much larger provider with more influence over the industry. Just to recap. In 2020 TalkTalk became the subject of a £1.1bn takeover by Toscafund - controlled by hedge fund tycoon Martin Hughes (here), which including debt valued the broadband provider at around £1.8bn. The deal took the ISP private and gave them more financial flexibility for their future plans. Since then, they've backed Freedom Fibre (here) and this week made the notable acquisition of Ethernet provider Virtual1 (here). According to the FT (paywall) and Sky News, TalkTalk is now said to have asked investment bank Lazard to review its options after allegedly being approach by several groups, including Vodafone and Sky (Sky Broadband). Lazard is a logical choice as they recently acted as Financial Advisor to TalkTalk on the Virtual1 transaction. Some industry analysts have reportedly suggested that TalkTalk itself could now be worth "at least" £3bn. But this seems rather optimistic for an ISP that doesn't have any significant fixed line broadband infrastructure to call its own (excluding their old unbundled LLU network) and largely just piggybacks off Openreach (BT), CityFibre and Freedom Fibre. But TalkTalk do have a strong business and wholesale side. Funnily enough, Sky Broadband are in a similar position with their own fixed line base, while Vodafone also likes to piggyback off Openreach and CityFibre. At present, Vodafone has a fixed broadband base of 991,000 customers, while Sky Broadband is estimated to be home to around 6.7 million and TalkTalk has approximately 4.2 million. Suffice to say, anybody gobbling up TalkTalk would instantly become a much larger provider, giving them a greater say in how the UK broadband market develops and more opportunities for convergence (Vodafone with mobile, and Sky with mobile and TV). Crucially, TalkTalk's consumer base is mostly made up of those on older copper and hybrid fibre lines (i.e. ADSL and FTTC / VDSL2), which are ripe for a future migration to FTTP. At the time of writing, all of the aforementioned operators have decline to comment on the reports, and TalkTalk has yet to receive any serious formal offers. In other words, we strongly suspect that this is largely just an exercise in spin to help TalkTalk drum up some more productive interest in the idea. But at the same time, it's not unreasonable to suspect that they might succeed, as the interest seems genuine. On the other hand, we see reports like this every year or so and only a very few ever convert into a serious offer. Time will tell. Much may depend upon whether or not TalkTalk’s new owners are more flexible and pragmatic about doing a deal than the previous lot. Arguably, TalkTalk might have gone much further by now had they taken some different decisions a few years ago (e.g. co-investing in FTTP instead of Pay TV).
Broadband ISP TalkTalk Preps New UK Smart Home Protection

21st Jan 2021 (16 Comments)

Budget conscious internet provider TalkTalk appears to be nearing completion of a new ‘Smart Home Protection‘ service (app), which is currently being trialled by a number of their broadband customers and looks to be an upgrade of their existing ‘Supersafe Boost’ (usually costs an extra £4 per month) and HomeSafe service.

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The Top 15 Category Tags
  1. FTTP (5530)
  2. BT (3518)
  3. Politics (2541)
  4. Openreach (2298)
  5. Business (2266)
  6. Building Digital UK (2246)
  7. FTTC (2045)
  8. Mobile Broadband (1976)
  9. Statistics (1790)
  10. 4G (1667)
  11. Virgin Media (1621)
  12. Ofcom Regulation (1465)
  13. Fibre Optic (1396)
  14. Wireless Internet (1391)
  15. FTTH (1382)
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