Carphone Warehouse buys Tiscali
May 22, 2009 at 4:02 pm
After a long and protracted bidding period, which saw serious bids from Sky and other companies fall through, it has finally been revealed that Carphone Warehouse has bought the UK arm of Tiscali for the knock-down price £236 million.
The deal, which is expected to be completed in June, means that Carphone Warehouse has now leapfrogged into second place in the UK broadband market, whilst BT currently leads the way with 4.7 million customers.
Already a popular provider with its TalkTalk division, the company hopes that this deal will lead to the addition of 1.45 million customers onto its current 2.8 million, which will provide the company with over 25% of the residential market.
Tiscali was forced to sell up after accruing debts of over €600 million. The troubled Italian company was unlucky in that the value of the pound fell so badly against the euro last year, meaning UK companies were not willing to fork out the price it was asking. With the Sky bid, the £550 million price tag was too much and this led to the collapse in talks, but now Carphone Warehouse looks like it has got itself a bargain.
From details of the bid that have been released to the media, it seems that it was not a very smooth process. This prompted Charles Dunstone, chief executive of the company, to describe it as “the longest deal I have ever worked on.”
There will be multiple benefits for Carphone Warehouse. There are 300,000 customers on the Tiscali dial-up service, and 100,000 wholesale broadband customers. This means that if the new customers stay with the company and take up one of its packages, its own customer numbers will rocket.
Broadband for all will be a billion says Mandelson
May 15, 2009 at 3:58 pm
What is Digital Britain? It is a report announced in October 2008, spearheaded by the communication minister Lord Carter, that aims to propel the UK into the future in terms of internet and communications services. One of the principle aims of the whole plan is to get the whole of Britain linked up to broadband internet, with 100% coverage for all four corners of the country and a minimum speed of 2Mbs.
Some experts believe this is going to be a huge mountain to climb and it will all depend on which companies the government supports and which of the current communications companies perform well under the watchful eye of the regulators. Whatever happens, Lord Mandelson is pretty sure it’s not going to happen for anything short of a billion pounds.
Mandelson was honest enough to admit that the communications companies alone wouldn’t be able to set up such a plan and that the government would have to bank roll a lot of the work. It’s likely Mr Brown’s government will invest generously in this, as the Prime Minister is convinced that a better communications network is one of the routes out of our current economic crisis. He feels that communication, especially broadband access, is as important to the UK now as bridges and trains were in the last century.
A big step in the Digital Britain idea will be sorting out the mobile phone networks, where Vodafone and O2 currently have the most muscle. It will be about forcing some of the companies to work together for the greater good: something they might find tough given the potential for a national dominance of the market in the future.
Tiscali braced for exodus
May 8, 2009 at 2:36 pm
TalkTalk is offering a £50 bill credit to every Tiscali customer who ‘jumps ship’ and signs up to the myTalkTalk Essentials package. The credit is equivalent to three months’ free broadband and phone services, and includes all connection fees.
Tiscali, an Italian ISP, has been wrestling with insolvency throughout much of this year, and TalkTalk’s offer can only hasten the provider’s descent into digital oblivion. Many of Tiscali’s users were left without email access during the Easter bank holiday weekend after the company failed to renew a domain name.
Screaming.net, the expired domain, is one of Tiscali’s earlier acquisitions, and provides email for a limited number of customers. Officials have blamed staff holidays for the extended disruption.
TalkTalk claims to have secured the signatures of thousands of disgruntled Tiscali members, but the ISP has yet to comment on why its offer applies to Tiscali’s beleaguered customer base exclusively.
Despite fears of an exodus, Tiscali remain steadfast: “We have seen this promotion but suggest customers look at this carefully as they would not be getting a better deal overall.” Furthermore, new TalkTalk customers are required to sign an 18-month contract.
Tiscali is attempting to sell the UK arm of its broadband operations – complete with customers – in an effort to stem the flow of cash out of its vaults. The credit crunch has crippled the company’s finances, and its customer base could be forgiven for thinking that Tiscali’s ship is on a collision course with bankruptcy.
The myTalkTalk Essentials package provides users with 40 GB of downloads, a free wireless router, and unlimited evening and weekend calls.
Pirate Bay to be stopped at the broadband source
May 1, 2009 at 3:48 pm
They may not have actually worn eye patches and a parrot on their shoulders but the two Swedish nerds who brought The Pirate Bay to our homes have now been told to walk the plank and are about to spend a year in jail. They broke the law through copyright infringement, but is there really anything anyone can do to stop their file sharing website when it’s essentially run by their number one fans, i.e. the thousands of people who use the site? It seems the only way to stop them is to cut them off at the source and that means the actual Internet Service Providers have to get their red tape out.
BT Mobile Broadband are the first to start yielding the riot gear. This month they have announced that if their customers try to access The Pirate Bay via WAP, or any other mobile device, they will be greeted with a rather stern message reading “content blocked”. BT state they aren’t out to bring down The Pirate Bay in particular but just any website that they deem to have an over 18 restricted viewing policy. This might be for the adult content of the site or, in this case, because the website doesn’t comply with law.
If BT Mobile Internet users really want to access Pirate Bay then they can ring up Customer Services and inform BT that they wish to opt-in, as it were. However, BT are pretty convinced that many won’t do this as it’s the equivalent of telling the man in the hardware shop that you’ll be using the crowbar to rob a bank. BT won’t be the only ISP to start this protection so if you want to use Pirate Bay then you’d better be quick.
