Home » UK ISP News Archive » Article Tag: TalkTalk (1042 Posts)

Articles for Category Tag - TalkTalk

Dear UK Broadband ISPs – Make Your Post Contract Prices Clear

12th April, 2023 (25 Comments)

We’ve lost count now of how many times ISPreview has had to say this over the years, but there are still far too many broadband ISPs in the UK – particularly larger players – that fail to clearly inform their customers of how much their package will cost post-contract. As a result, consumers often feel misled when it comes time to re-contract.

TalkTalk Named Worst Major UK Broadband ISP in Which? Survey

29th March, 2023 (21 Comments)

Consumer magazine Which? has published a partial summary of the results from their latest biannual 2023 survey of the best and worst broadband ISPs, which once again named Zen Internet as the best overall provider (customer satisfaction score of 81%), while TalkTalk were found to be the worst of the major players.

Broadband ISP TalkTalk Ponders Sale of UK Business Division

27th March, 2023 (5 Comments)

Budget broadband ISP TalkTalk is reportedly mulling over the possibility of selling their business-to-business arm (TT Business Direct Limited), which is home to around 80,000 customers and could be worth over £200 million. The provider is understood to have hired bankers at Houlihan Lokey to oversee the plan.

UK ISP TalkTalk Considers Options After Management Shake-up

16th March, 2023 (14 Comments)

Budget-focused broadband ISP TalkTalk appears to be going through somewhat of a management shake-up after Virgin Media (VMO2) reportedly went cold on the idea of reaching a £3bn merger deal with the provider last year (here), which has left them with some decisions to make about the future.

Plusnet UK Sweeps the 2023 Expert Reviews Broadband ISP Awards

2nd March, 2023 (21 Comments)

Consumer website Expert Reviews has published the winners of their annual “Best Broadband Awards 2023” event, which has surveyed UK consumers in an effort to identify the best Internet Service Providers (ISP) across a range of categories. Much like last year, the overall winner was named as Plusnet, again.

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 UK Predicts Data Traffic Growth to 2027

22nd February, 2023 (3 Comments)

UK ISP TalkTalk has revealed that peak internet usage on their broadband network is higher now than it was during the height of the pandemic, having risen by a fifth (21%) since 2020, with the average evening peak of 7.23Tbps (Terabits per second) in 2022 vs 5.95Tbps in 2020. But come 2027 it’ll be much higher.

LINX and UK Broadband ISPs See Huge 15th Feb Traffic Surge UPDATE2

16th February, 2023 (11 Comments)

Internet traffic across UK broadband ISPs surged to a new peak on Wednesday night (15th Feb 2023), with customers of TalkTalk setting a new record of 10.25Tbps (Terabits per second), while Virgin Media hit 24.77Tbps, BT topped 29.11Tbps and the London Internet Exchange (LINX) reached a peak of around 7.87Tbps.

TalkTalk Winks at Sky While Turning Satellite TV Dishes into Art

16th February, 2023 (13 Comments)

Broadband ISP TalkTalk UK has today moved to promote their latest Pay TV Hub by partnering with mural artist Qubek (Russell Meheen) to create a “live street art stunt” (Dish it Out), which turns old satellite TV dishes into art. The aim is to highlight how people are “spending unnecessarily” on “expensive” TV plans (wink.. wink.. Sky).

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Shell Energy Still Attracting Most UK Broadband Gripes in Q3 2022

26th January, 2023 (3 Comments)

The latest Q3 2022 Ofcom survey of UK consumer complaints has, once again, named ISP Shell Energy as attracting the most consumer gripes for both fixed line broadband and landline phone services, while BT and Virgin Mobile did the same for Pay Monthly Mobile services and Virgin Media for Pay TV.

Broadband ISP TalkTalk Boosts UK AltNet Onboarding Plans

23rd January, 2023 (6 Comments)

Budget broadband ISP TalkTalk, which in recent years has expanded beyond Openreach’s UK network and now offers services via several other alternative full fibre (FTTP) networks, has given a strong indication of further AltNet aggregation to come by adopting Strategic Imperatives’ Fibre Café aggregation platform.

Cityfibre Show Cost Savings of Taking its UK FTTP Broadband Network

19th January, 2023 (36 Comments)

A new study from CityFibre, which is building a 10Gbps capable full fibre (FTTP) network across the UK, has claimed that consumers switching to entry-level broadband plans from ISPs on their network could save as much as £119 in 12 months (rising up to £458 for those requiring 1Gbps speeds). Plus, you can now get an extra £50 discount.

TalkTalk Blame Ofcom and UK Wholesale Providers for Price Hikes UPDATE

18th January, 2023 (21 Comments)

Broadband ISP TalkTalk has moved to try and deflect some of the negative attention they’re likely to get from the confirmation of today’s annual inflation linked price hikes. The provider has done this by shifting the blame for those rises on to the shoulders of Ofcom and their wholesale providers (mainly Openreach).

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Jan 2023 Inflation Figures Confirm Huge UK Broadband Price Hikes UPDATE

18th January, 2023 (17 Comments)

Most of the major UK broadband ISPs can now confirm how much their annual price hikes will be after the Office of National Statistics (ONS) published their latest UK inflation figures, which saw the Consumer Price Index (CPI) hit 10.5% (up from 5.4% in Jan 2022) and the Retail Price Index (RPI) reach 13.4% (up from 7.5%).

ISP TalkTalk Offers Discount Pay TV and NOW TV Membership

9th January, 2023 (0 Comments)

Budget broadband ISP TalkTalk has today announced that customers ordering one of their “Full Fibre” (FTTP) packages will also, optionally, be able to add both their Android TV powered Pay TV service and a NOW TV Entertainment Membership for just £9.99 a month with no up-front costs.

UK ISPs EE and TalkTalk Discount Full Fibre Broadband Plans

30th December, 2022 (0 Comments)

New customers signing up to broadband ISPs TalkTalk or EE may like to know that both have separately launched some early January Sale style promotions on their Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) packages, which add another discount to some monthly rentals and throws in the odd bonus.

Price Hikes in UK Telecoms and Broadband

Broadband Consumers Brace for Massive 2023 UK Price Hikes

28th December, 2022 (49 Comments)

As if 2022 wasn’t already devastating enough for the UK cost-of-living, the annual price hikes season is about to hit again for customers of the largest broadband ISPs and mobile operators, which for the second year running is expected to be driven by another huge increase in inflation. Expect hikes of around 14% or more.

2022 vs 2021 Top Fastest UK Mobile and Home Broadband ISPs

27th December, 2022 (20 Comments)

As another year passes, ISPreview.co.uk has taken a look back over the past 12 months to see how the average UK broadband download and upload speeds have changed across the fastest nationally available fixed line ISPs, mobile operators and Starlink (satellite provider). Suffice to say, there’s been a huge performance jump between 2021 and 2022.