Broadband ISP TalkTalk Sells 120,000 UK Customers to Rise Fibre UPDATE

Debt-strained UK ISP TalkTalk has unexpectedly sold a further 120,000 of their consumer broadband customers to the relatively new internet provider Rise Fibre, which is backed by private equity firm CVC and is a trading name of the more established alternative network and ISP 4th Utility. But the deal raises questions over TT’s plan to sell their consumer division.

The TalkTalk Group has certainly had a difficult few years as it attempts to manage an increasingly challenging pile of debt. So far this has included various refinancing efforts and funding deals (here, here and here), redundancies (here and here), a fair bit of cost-cutting, a demerger of their businesses (Talk Talk Consumer, PXC [Wholesale] and Talk Talk Business Direct), a major brand refresh of their consumer division, a legal dispute with Ovo (here), a sale of some customers to UW (here), supplier disputes (here) and ongoing efforts to sell some of their businesses (here and here).

The latest development is that rival ISP Rise Fibre, which typically serves customers on CityFibre’s and Openreach’s national full fibre (FTTP) broadband networks (4th Utility also has their own fibre network for deployments into blocks of flats / MDUs etc.), has done a deal to acquire 120,000 of TalkTalk’s broadband customers (seemingly those connected via CityFibre).

According to The Telegraph (paywall), the move will effectively more than double Rise Fibre’s subscriber base to almost 250,000 (they aspire to reach 1 million UK customers), which is a significant development for such a new retail provider. But the financial details of the deal were not disclosed and TalkTalk declined to comment.

Steve Wilson, CEO of Rise Fibre, said:

“This is far more than an acquisition. It marks another major step in the emergence of a genuine new challenger in UK broadband.

Customers have been telling the industry for years that they want something different — better service, simpler products and a provider that’s genuinely easy to deal with. That’s exactly why we created Rise Fibre.

Reaching almost a quarter of a million customers so quickly shows that our approach is resonating. The TalkTalk acquisition significantly accelerates that journey, but we’re only getting started.

We have ambitious plans to continue growing through further acquisitions and strong organic performance as we build the UK’s fastest-growing broadband provider. Our long-term ambition is clear: to serve more than one million customers while continuing to put customer experience at the heart of everything we do.”

The agreement does, however, raise question marks over the value of TalkTalk’s remaining customer base and its prospects for reaching a future deal to sell the whole business. As mentioned earlier, Vodafone were recently reported to have expressed a serious interest in the group’s consumer base (here), although nothing has been officially confirmed. Equally, it’s unclear whether this would involve the whole business (brand, customers, support teams etc.) or just its remaining customer base.

At present we’re waiting for TalkTalk to publish their latest annual results, which should provide a useful update on their position. But the Telegraph notes that the group did already share a few details with investors, which reported revenues falling by 15% in the first quarter of the financial year to £292m, while their retail customer base fell to 1.6 million (down by a quarter on last year) and they burned through £58m in the same quarter.

In recent months TalkTalk has also paused the sale of some broadband and digital phone products to new customers (here and here), while also unexpectedly shutting down their customer discussion forum for well over a month without a clear explanation or timescale for its return (here).

UPDATE 8:21am

Rise Fibre has now issued an official press release on the development, which puts the figure at “approximately” 120,000 rather than 130,000 (we assume the Telegraph rounded up) and provides a fuller quote from the CEO (edited above). The news also confirms that Rise Fibre make use of networks from Openreach (BT), CityFibre, CommunityFibre, Trooli, Freedom Fibre and 4th Utility.

Behind Rise Fibre’s growth is said to be “significant long-term investment” from CVC DIF, the infrastructure strategy of leading global private markets manager CVC, which has provided additional funding during both 2025 and 2026 to support acquisitions and future expansion. The business is now said to be “profitable, cash generative and well-positioned to accelerate further growth“.

The company has also expanded its operations rapidly. Headcount has tripled over the past two years, creating more than 120 new UK jobs, alongside additional roles supporting customers from South Africa. Following a move to a larger headquarters in Greater Manchester in 2025, the business expanded the office again earlier this year to accommodate continued recruitment.

One challenge in all this is that some businesses often suffer challenges when they expand faster than the rest of their parts can maintain. Hopefully Rise Fibre has already prepared for that, otherwise it can sometimes create pain points in service quality and support.