TalkTalk Group

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TalkTalk Telecom Limited
Company typeLimited
IndustryTelecommunications
Founded2003
HeadquartersLondon, England, UK
Key people
David Thatcher, MD
Charles Dunstone, CEO
ProductsHome and Mobile telephone services and Broadband Internet access
ParentCarphone Warehouse
Websitewww.talktalk.co.uk & www.talktalkmembers.com

TalkTalk is the landline telephone and ISP business of The Carphone Warehouse and was launched in 2003 under the directorship of Paul Halliwell, along with Neil Welch in sales, Sarah Thayne as Product Manager and Andrew Mckillican as Customer Manager. According to their own figures they had 1 million customers as of October 2007[1], and see themselves as one of BT's largest telecommunications rivals.

Originally solely a fixed landline provider, TalkTalk now operates several MVNOs such as TalkTalk Mobile, which led to the company allowing all calls between any TalkTalk landline and any TalkTalk mobile, or vice versa, free to consumers. It also offers Fresh Mobile and Mobile World along with its high-speed broadband internet service to home phone subscribers.

TalkTalk, like its parent the Carphone Warehouse, has expanded from the UK to other European countries. It now also operates in Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland and The Netherlands.[2]

Landline Phone Services

After its acquisition of Opal Telecom in November 2002, The Carphone Warehouse now had its own switching network providing access to BT Wholesales landline network for the first time. An initial trial was conducted in the Manchester region. Three months later, TalkTalk was launched with the slogan "landline calls for less", and a guarantee that calls would be cheaper than with their perceived chief competitor, British Telecom.

Due to Ofcom regulations, TalkTalk customers must have a BT (non-cable) telephone line connected to their house in order to join. No other provider is legally obliged to connect it's local lines to another carrier at the exchange.


Criticisms and controversies

Sponsorship

In 2004, TalkTalk won the sponsorship rights to Big Brother from the UK mobile firm O2. Sponsorship continued until the race controversy of Celebrity Big Brother in 2007 after which the company retracted it's sponsorship agreement.[3]

Telecom sales

In 2005 TalkTalk was accused of using the practice of telephone slamming (changing consumer's residential phone line over to a new provider without their consent). [4] Some cases were linked to instances of mis-selling by sales people on the doorstep or by telephone; other consumers reported that their personal data had been misused after buying mobile telephones from Carphone Warehouse. [5] These sales techniques exploited a loophole in British law which allowed consumers to change telecom service providers more easily.

Free broadband

In 2006 TalkTalk launched a promotion offering free broadband. The promotion attracted criticism when demand outstripped supply and the network systems were unable to cope with the consumer response.

April 2006

On 11 April 2006, TalkTalk started offering a free broadband service (up to 8 Mbit/s with a 40 GB monthly usage limit) for life to all subscribers to their Talk3 International telephone tariff at £20.99/month. Conditions included signing up to a minimum 18 month contract and a £29.99 connection fee.[6]

July 2006

The Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) challenged TalkTalk on their free broadband offer.[7] Soon after this challenge, TalkTalk began to offer free broadband on their cheaper Talk3 tariff. This allowed people to have unlimited telephone calls, broadband and line rental for £19.99 a month. This offer was available to new and existing customers, though broadband was only free for customers connected to a Local loop unbundling (LLU) exchange. As of July 2006, TalkTalk claimed that free broadband was available to 70% of the UK population. They hope that this figure will increase as British Telecom allow the unbundling of their remaining exchanges. Customers not on an unbundled exchange are charged a monthly fee for broadband access. Many users of TalkTalk Broadband do not experience the full 8 Mbit/s speed, as this depends on the extent to which the user's local exchange has been unbundled, and (as with all ADSL services) the distance from the exchange. Users not on unbundled exchanges get a fixed speed service at 0.5, 1 or 2M and not "up to 8M".

Some experts predicted this might provoke a UK broadband price war[8]. Shortly following this report, Orange began to offer free broadband to users of their monthly mobile phone contracts, and Sky also began offering a variety of free or very cheap broadband packages to their subscribers.

Due to the unexpectedly high number of customers who signed up to the free broadband service, the launch suffered complaints with regard to a long waiting list to join the broadband programme and many difficulties in contacting TalkTalk customer services. In a Sunday Times interview, Charles Dunstone admitted that Carphone's TalkTalk business was "struggling to cope" with the more than 400,000 customers who signed up for high-speed internet access since the service launched in April. He also compared TalkTalk Broadband to "a little baby who’s waking up every two hours and is disturbing the family and making our lives a nightmare."[9]

September 2006

TalkTalk allowed customers to escape the binding 18-month contract for broadband "if it had failed to keep its service commitments in their case".[10]

October 2006

On the BBC programme Watchdog (3 October 2006), Charles Dunstone stated "I got it wrong. I didn't realise that free broadband was going to have the effect on people it has."[11]

November 2006

To the Mail on Sunday Charles Dunstone stated "In about 20% of customers there is some kind of problem with the phone exchange, the line, or something else. There is no point trying to pretend everything is all right. Our business exploded and we compressed the problems everyone in the industry has had into a few months. It has given customers nightmares and I just can't ignore complaints."[12][13]

A customer satisfaction poll by uSwitch places TalkTalk and Orange joint bottom for customer satisfaction.[14]

January 2007

The published figures show that by the third quarter of 2006, 540,000 users had been subscribed to TalkTalk broadband of which 132,000 were (TalkTalk) LLU lines.[15] In the third quarter trading update, the published figure was 413,000 customers unbundled, including 281,000 AOL Broadband customers.[16]

Roger Taylor (CFO) reported that the number of TalkTalk Broadband customers was lower than expected, but was forecasting 700,000 customers on unbundled lines (LLU) by March 2007.[15]

In response to the sign up rate halving, The Carphone Warehouse has introduced a free 30 day trial for broadband customers. Charles Dunstone told staff this week that the free trial was "an attempt to give people the confidence to try it, despite what they might have heard". Customers will be able to cancel the contract within 30 days without incurring a penalty.[17]

Data pimping

Main article: Data pimping

In early 2008 it was announced that the ISP arm of Talk Talk had entered into a contract (along with BT and Virgin Media) with the former spyware company Phorm (responsible under their 121Media guise for the Apropos rootkit)[18][19] to intercept and analyse their users' click-stream data, and sell the anonymised aggregate information as part of Phorm's OIX advertising service.[20][21] The practice, which has become known as "data pimping", came under intense fire from various internet communities and other interested-parties who believe that the interception of data is illegal under UK law (RIPA).[22][23][24][25] At a more fundamental level, many have argued that the ISPs and Phorm have no right to sell a commodity (a user's data) to which they have no claim of ownership. In response to questions about Phorm and the interception of data by the Webwise system Sir Tim Berners-Lee is quoted as saying:

"It's mine - you can't have it. If you want to use it for something, then you have to negotiate with me." - Sir Tim Berners-Lee: 2008[26]


Timeline

Year Month Event
2002 November Opal Telecom acquired by The Carphone Warehouse[27]
2003 February TalkTalk brand launched
2004 January Acquisition of E2Save for £4.7m[28]
March Acquisition of Xtra in Spain for £11.6m[28]
April TalkTalk introduces unlimited free calls between its customers.[29]
November TalkTalk Broadband launched[30]
2005 March Acquisition of One Stop Phone Shop for £15m[31]
December Acquisition of Tele2 for £11.5m[31] and One.Tel for £169.6m[31]. TalkTalk now have 2.5m customers.
2006 April "Free" TalkTalk broadband offer launched[6]
October Acquisition of AOL UK for £370m[32]


References

  1. ^ Brief History about TalkTalk launch of Free Broadband & Landline
  2. ^ Brief History about TalkTalk launch of Free Broadband & Landline
  3. ^ http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/01/18/carphone_warehouse_pulls_bb_sponsorship
  4. ^ "When slamming the phone prompts a row". The Guardian. 2005-04-23. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
  5. ^ "Phone scam hits thousands". Daily Mail. 2005-04-25. Retrieved 2008-04-30.
  6. ^ a b "Free broadband forever" (Press release). The Carphone Warehouse. 2006-04-11. Retrieved 2006-11-08.
  7. ^ "ASA Upholds 3 TalkTalk Complaints". ISPReview. 19 July 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-01.
  8. ^ "Phone firm launches net price war". BBC. 11 April 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  9. ^ "Broadband 'nightmare' for Talk Talk". The Sunday Times. 23 July 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-11. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  10. ^ "TalkTalk customers break contract shackles". The Register. 29 September 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  11. ^ "Watchdog viewers have been complaining all summer about Talk Talk. It seems the company's broadband revolution stalls on customer service". Talk Talk broadband. BBC. 3 October 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-01. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  12. ^ "The Sunday interview: Charles Dunstone (the TalkTalk man)". Mail on Sunday. 5 November 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-06. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  13. ^ "TalkTalk Free Broadband "a disturbing nightmare" says CEO". CNET. 8 November 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-08. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  14. ^ "Punters suffer in broadband price war". The Register. 14 November 2006. Retrieved 2006-11-14. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  15. ^ a b "Carphone gets mixed reception as broadband stalls". Reuters. 12 January 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  16. ^ "Carphone Warehouse Trading Update, Released: 12/01/2007". CPW. 12 January 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-12. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  17. ^ "Carphone plugs TalkTalk". Noble House Media Ltd, Mobile Today. 16 January 2007. Retrieved 2007-01-17. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  18. ^ F-Secure Spyware Information Pages: Apropos
  19. ^ F-Secure Spyware Information Pages: PeopleOnPage
  20. ^ ISP data deal with former 'spyware' boss triggers privacy fears
  21. ^ How Phorm plans to tap your internet connection
  22. ^ Web users angry at ISPs' spyware tie-up
  23. ^ Data pimping: surveillance expert raises illegal wiretap worries
  24. ^ Net think thank: Phorm is illegal
  25. ^ The Phorm “Webwise” System - a Legal Analysis
  26. ^ Web creator rejects net tracking
  27. ^ Brief History about TalkTalk launch of Free Broadband & Landline
  28. ^ a b "Annual Report 2004" (Press release). The Carphone Warehouse. 2004. Retrieved 2006-11-03.
    • "On 1 January 2004, the Group acquired 100% of the issued share capital of E2save.com Limited, a company registered in England, for an initial gross consideration of £1.4m, with a further contingent deferred consideration of up to £3.3m payable over two years."
    • "On 8 March 2004, the Group acquired 100% of the issued share capital of Xtra Telecom SA, a fixed line service provider registered in Spain, for an initial gross consideration of £7.5m, with a further contingent deferred consideration expected to be up to £4.1m payable over two years."
  29. ^ Brief History about TalkTalk launch of Free Broadband & Landline
  30. ^ "The Carphone Warehouse launches TalkTalk Broadband" (Press release). The Carphone Warehouse. 2004-11-01. Retrieved 2006-11-08.
  31. ^ a b c "Annual Report 2005" (Press release). The Carphone Warehouse. 2005. Retrieved 2006-11-04.
    • "On 1 March 2005, the Group acquired 100% of the issued share capital of One Stop Phone Shop Limited, a company registered in England and Wales that specialises in the mobile ‘off-the-page’ market, for an initial gross cash consideration of £8.3m, with a further contingent deferred consideration of up to £6.7m payable over two years."
    • "On 16 December 2005, the Group acquired 100% of the issued share capital of Tele2 UK Communications Limited (Tele2 UK), a company registered in Englandand Wales, for a gross cash consideration of £11.5m. Tele2 UK is involved in the provision of telecommunications services to residential customers."
    • "On 19 December 2005, the Group acquired 100% of the issued share capital of Centrica Telecommunications Limited, Onetel Limited, Telco Holdings Limited, Awardmodel Limited and their subsidiaries (Onetel), all of which are registered in England and Wales, for a gross cash consideration of £169.6m. Onetel is involved in the provision of telecommunications services to both residential and business customers."
  32. ^ "Carphone Warehouse to acquire Time Warner's AOL Internet access business in the UK for £370 million". Carphone Warehouse Press Release. 2006-10-11. Retrieved 2006-10-27.


See also

External links

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