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

Articles for Category Tag - TalkTalk

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 January, 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.

ISP TalkTalk Business Offer 3 Months Free Full Fibre Broadband

20th January, 2021 (5 Comments)

UK ISP TalkTalk Business recently began offering a new promotion on their Openreach based “Business Full Fibre” (FTTP) broadband products for small and medium sized businesses, which on top of the existing monthly discount also gives new customers the first 3 months of service for free.

Ofcom Updates Scorecards for Comparing Mobile and Broadband ISPs

14th January, 2021 (6 Comments)

Ofcom and the UK Regulators Network (UKRN), which includes data from CCW, FCA, Ofgem and Ofwat, have today published an updated series of scorecards that are intended to help consumers compare several key performance areas from the largest broadband, mobile, phone, energy, water and financial providers.

TalkTalk Discount 145Mbps G.fast Ultrafast Broadband to £14

6th January, 2021 (16 Comments)

Budget UK ISP TalkTalk has introduced a new discount that cuts the price of their hybrid fibre G.fast based “Fibre 150” (145Mbps average download, 25Mbps upload) broadband package to just £14 per month for the first six months of service, which then rises to £28 for the remaining part of the 18 month term (£39.95 thereafter).

The 2020 vs 2019 Top Fastest UK Mobile and Home Broadband ISPs

29th December, 2020 (16 Comments)

As usual we’re ending 2020 by taking a quick look back over the year to see how average download and upload speeds have changed across the top national fixed line home broadband ISPs and mobile network operators. Predictably, the rising take-up of faster connections has resulted in a general improvement.

ISP TalkTalk Hikes the Cost of Unlimited UK Calls Boost Add-on

24th December, 2020 (41 Comments)

Customers of UK broadband ISP TalkTalk, specifically those that take a landline phone service with the optional “Unlimited UK Calls Boost” plan, may be unhappy to learn that the monthly price they pay will be hiked by an additional £2 per month from 15th January 2021.

Broadband ISP TalkTalk Sees UK Internet Traffic Surge 50% in 2020

22nd December, 2020 (13 Comments)

Budget broadband ISP TalkTalk has today reported that, on average, household internet usage on their network increased by 50% year-on-year in 2020 as the COVID-19 crisis “accelerated the importance of home connectivity” across all aspects of life (e.g. working from home, video conferencing, education etc.).

Broadband ISP TalkTalk UK SOLD to Toscafund in £1.1bn Deal UPDATE

17th December, 2020 (5 Comments)

After an extended period of negotiation TalkTalk, the budget broadband and phone provider that is currently home to around 4.2 million UK customers, has today officially recommend a £1.1bn takeover proposal from Toscafund, which including debt values the company at around £1.8bn.

Cityfibre to Start £22m Weston-super-Mare FTTP Broadband Build

15th December, 2020 (10 Comments)

Cityfibre has today confirmed that they intend to invest £22m in order to deploy a new 1Gbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network across the seaside town of Weston-super-Mare in Somerset (England), with the build itself starting in January 2021.

Shell Now Favourite to Gobble Post Office Broadband Division

7th December, 2020 (8 Comments)

A report claims that UK ISP and energy provider Shell Energy has now emerged as the preferred bidder for the Post Office’s telecoms division, which specially relates to its base of around 500,000 broadband and phone customers that is currently said to be valued at c.£100 million.

ISP TalkTalk Sees Sunday UK Internet Data Traffic Hit 7.23Tbps

7th December, 2020 (18 Comments)

Budget broadband ISP TalkTalk has reported yet another new internet data traffic record of 7.23Tbps (Terabits per second), which was set yesterday evening at 8:30pm. This is enough to beat their previous record of 6.94Tbps (here), which was set on 14th November 2020 when various popular video game updates were released.

Ofcom See Average UK Broadband ISP Speeds Rise to 71.8Mbps

5th December, 2020 (40 Comments)

Ofcom has published a biannual update for their latest dataset on fixed broadband speeds, which among other things found that the average (mean) actual download speed of UK residential ISPs has increased from 64Mbps (14Mbps upload) in their May 2020 report (here) to 71.8Mbps (14.2Mbps) now.

Openreach Takes UK ISP TalkTalk to Court Over Unpaid Fees

2nd December, 2020 (21 Comments)

Network access provider Openreach (BT) has confirmed that they’ve “reluctantly” begun a high court case against budget broadband ISP TalkTalk, which reportedly centres on a dispute over unpaid fees (said to be worth c.£16m) for wholesale access to its high-speed fibre optic based Ethernet products.

copper vs fibre optic openreach engineer

TalkTalk Considers Legal Action to Stop Openreach Price Rises

29th November, 2020 (48 Comments)

Budget UK phone and broadband ISP TalkTalk has reportedly approached Sky Broadband and Vodafone about the possibility of combining forces in a legal challenge to halt a key change in Ofcom’s Wholesale Fixed Telecoms Market Review 2021-26 (FTMR), which could result in Openreach (BT) charging higher wholesale prices.

UK ISP TalkTalk Discounts Broadband Plans for Black Friday

25th November, 2020 (2 Comments)

Budget broadband provider TalkTalk will today become the latest in a long line of ISPs to temporarily reduce their monthly prices for new customers as part of the annual “Black Friday” phenomenon. On top of that they’ve also removed the postage fee for almost all of their packages, except their older ADSL based plan.

ISP TalkTalk Business Launch New Ultrafast Broadband Plans

17th November, 2020 (13 Comments)

UK ISP TalkTalk Business has today announced the launch of their new “Business Full Fibre” (FTTP) and “Business Ultrafast Fibre” (G.fast) broadband products for small and medium sized businesses, which at present are both supplied via Openreach’s national network (although they’ll soon be offering FTTP from Cityfibre too).

Cityfibre Commit £50m to Blanket North Tyneside in 1Gbps Fibre UPDATE

16th November, 2020 (11 Comments)

Fibre optic developer Cityfibre UK has today announced they will invest £50m to cover “nearly every home and business” in North Tyneside (Tyne and Wear, England) with access to their new gigabit-capable and Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based broadband ISP network.