Broadband News & Mobile Broadband News

The Carphone Warehouse has today been given approval by EU authorities to proceed with its £236 million takeover of broadband provider Tiscali UK.

The EU were looking to see if the acquisition would damage competition within the UK’s broadband sector.

However, it was found that while the Carphone Warehouse is set to become the UK’s largest broadband provider with over 4.25 million customers, it will still face hefty competition from company’s such as BT and Virgin Media – not too mention the UK’s mobile broadband providers.

An EU executive said, “The Commissions’ examination of the proposed transaction showed that none of the above markets would give rise to competition concerns.”

“The new entity will continue to face competition from a number of strong players, especially BT, as well as from a number of strong alternative operators, including those based on the cable platform”.

Tiscali still operates in Italy and other parts of the world and will use the proceeds of the sale to restructure its debt mountain.

The Carphone Warehouse will move Tiscali UK into its de-merged broadband business which includes TalkTalk Broadband and AOL Broadband.

The Carphone Warehouse has confirmed that TalkTalk will be completely de-merged from the company by July 2010 – with the businesses likely to become two separate listed companies.

TalkTalk is currently the Carphone Warehouse’s UK home phone and broadband division. It delivers fixed line phone services to more than 3.9 million homes with 2.8 million of these also taking broadband.

It will become the UK’s second largest broadband supplier once its acquisition of the Tiscali UK broadband business is completed later this month.

The CEO of the Carphone Warehouse, Charles Dunstone, said, “It’s been increasingly obvious that the group is now two businesses – Best Buy Europe and TalkTalk Group. The one grew out of the other; but both have now reached the stage where there are no material synergies between them and where, for operational and competitive reasons, they need to operate independently. The businesses are effectively run as separate entities already, each with highly experienced and strong management teams.”

He continued, “The logic to demerge the two businesses and to give each shareholder a proportional direct interest in both is therefore clear. We have undertaken the necessary planning to confirm our view that this is in shareholder’s interests and to determine the practicable way of achieving the demerger process at the latest by July 2010.”

In related news Vodafone and the Carphone Warehouse have reconnected for the first time since 2006.

In 2006 the Carphone Warehouse stopped selling Vodafone contract mobile phones in its stores. Now customers will once again be able to buy Vodafone mobiles from the Carphone Warehouse.

Even though it backed out a year ago, the Carphone Warehouse is once again considering buying out Tiscali, the debt laden telecoms company that operates in both the UK and Italy.

Tiscali had been in talks with BSkyB, but negotiations broke down over price, leaving the Carphone Warehouse with an opportunity to reconsider a buyout plan.

Without a buyer, there is a real danger that Tiscali will enter administration, which would mean their customer base being sold to a different provider at a cut price.

In February the company’s shares were suspended as it struggled to repay the interest due on its £508 million debt pile.

The Carphone Warehouse refused to give a statement on the supposed takeover plan, saying, “We never comment on speculation.” Tiscali also refused to comment on the matter.

Only time will tell whether Tiscali can find a buyer and that leaves its customers in a fairly tough position. Should they stay and be sold on to a different provider? Or should they consider switching now?

It’s back! – You can now order the AOL Broadband Wireless Plus package with free PlayStation 3 (PS3) for just £19.99 per month.

This is a new special offer from AOL and its parent company the Carphone Warehouse. It comes with a free wireless router on a 24 month contract.



The free Sony PlayStation 3 (PS3) comes with a built in Blu-ray HD DVD player and is yours to keep forever – there’s no catch!

You’ll also receive a free Spiderman 3 Blu-Ray DVD and Gran Turismo 5 Prologue game.

You can find out more on this special offer by reading our AOL Broadband free PlayStation 3 review here.

You can now get a free Elenox Webbook (a mini laptop) worth £250 when you order Orange Mobile Broadband online at the Carphone Warehouse.

The Elenox Webbook is the perfect mini laptop for those who lead a busy life and with Orange Mobile Broadband it enables you to surf the Internet and access your email when you’re on the move.



The free Elenox Webbook has an 80Gb hard drive and 512MB of RAM. It comes pre-installed with Windows XP & Windows Media Player and has a 10.2 wide screen.

The Orange mobile broadband package provides speeds up to 1.8Mb with a 3Gb monthly download usage allowance.

This exclusive Orange mobile broadband and free laptop package costs just £25 a month and can only be ordered online at the Carphone Warehouse.

Please read our Mobile Broadband With Free Laptop guide to compare this deal with the other mobile broadband deals currently available.