The UK's new largest home broadband provider will be formed next month with the Carphone Warehouse buying the UK arm of Italian ISP Tiscali for £236 million. Tiscali's future has been in doubt due to bad debt and since the business was put up for sale last year negotiations with the Carphone Warehouse and rival BSkyB have been on and off.Carphone Warehouse will pay just £236 million of the £600 million that Tiscali originally wanted and will integrate the internet service provider with their current TalkTalk services. The company, which also operates AOL broadband in the UK, says that it is yet to decide whether to keep the brand name or not but that current customers will be able to keep their Tiscali email addresses.
There will be approximately 4.25 million UK homes subscribed to services operated by the Carphone Warehouse once the acquisition is completed, which is expected to happen before the end of next month, equating to over 25% of the residential broadband market. This is in comparison with the UK's other main ISP BT who provide residential internet services to 3.9 million homes, although claim to have 4.6 million subscribers overall including 700,000 business customers.
Despite turning down an initial bid of $550 million from Carphone Warehouse about a year ago, Mario Rosso - the chief executive of Tiscali - tried to put a positive spin on the news: "The transaction should be considered in light of the strong consolidating trend in the highly competitive UK market, evaluating Tiscali UK activities as a whole, thus preserving the value of its industrial assets and know-how within the Carphone Warehouse Group." Charles Dunstone - chief executive of the Carphone Warehouse Group - added: "We very much welcome Tiscali's UK customers and staff to TalkTalk. Together we intend to continue leading the way in UK broadband."
Nets usually have a lot of holes in them
Sooner this recession is over and I get a pay rise the better.
In saying that I do still have a great job, now for the biggest residential ISP in the UK, so i should be thankful methinks.
Lets hope that they can get their resources together to make something worth recommending.
Lets hope that they can get their resources together to make something worth recommending.
Lets hope that they can get their resources together to make something worth recommending.
Could not have said it better myself. At least all the **** is in one place now though. And remember people. You join this 'super' isp you're joining PHORM. Which is BAD..mmmmkay
Haha so true, can only be a good thing
Lets hope that they can get their resources together to make something worth recommending.
I came here to write that exact same comment.
TalkTalk are the pits, and AOL and Tiscali are no better!!
30ms to UK and more interestingly euro servers.
Tiscali sometimes struggles to keep 30ms to the UK (very bad last month, fixed again now). But to connect outside of the country you're looking at 50ms+ at the very best.
As I don't have a choice of ISP where I live atm, I can only hope the buyout will mean Tiscali customers will get TalkTalk service routing.
30ms to UK and more interestingly euro servers.
Tiscali sometimes struggles to keep 30ms to the UK (very bad last month, fixed again now). But to connect outside of the country you're looking at 50ms+ at the very best.
As I don't have a choice of ISP where I live atm, I can only hope the buyout will mean Tiscali customers will get TalkTalk service routing.
I very much doubt that at least not initially as they are separate networks, eventually they may all merge into one, depending on CPW's plans but to start with at least i'd not expect it to change quickly.
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