Establishment
The Carphone Warehouse's acquisition of Opal Telecom in November 2002 gave it its own switching network providing access to BT Wholesale's landline network. An initial trial was conducted in the Manchester region, and three months later, TalkTalk launched with a guarantee that calls would be cheaper than with their perceived chief competitor BT. TalkTalk Broadband was launched in November 2004.[7]
On 11 April 2006, TalkTalk launched a new broadband service which was promoted as "Free broadband forever" and which offered 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 for a minimum 18-month contract and a £29.99 initial connection fee. That same year, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) challenged the legitimacy of TalkTalk's claim that this service was truly "free".[8]
Due to the high number of customers who signed up to the free broadband service, the "Free broadband forever" 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, TalkTalk chairman 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 in the time since the service launched.[9] 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] Dunstone stated "In about 20% of customers there is some kind of problem with the phone exchange, the line, or something else.[11] A customer satisfaction poll by uSwitch in November 2006 placed TalkTalk and Orange joint bottom for customer satisfaction.[12]
By 2005, TalkTalk had 2.5 million customers following the acquisitions of the UK subsidiaries of Tele2 for £11.5 million and One.Tel for £169.6 million.[13] Carphone Warehouse purchased the UK ISP business of AOL in October 2006 for £370m and renamed it AOL Broadband.[14] This had risen to 2.7 million customers by January 2009.[15]
Demerger
In November 2008, Charles Dunstone was reported to be looking to demerge TalkTalk from the main Carphone Warehouse business.[16] The split was confirmed in April 2009, with plans for TalkTalk to become a separate listed company.[17]
Carphone Warehouse agreed to purchase the UK subsidiary of Tiscali in May 2009 for £236 million.[18] The purchase was approved by the European Union Competition Commission in June 2009,[19] and the sale was completed on 6 July 2009.[20] Carphone Warehouse confirmed the business would merge into TalkTalk ahead of the planned demerger.[21] The Carphone Warehouse's full-year earnings statement in November 2009 revealed the TalkTalk customer base had risen to 4.1 million following the purchase of Tiscali UK earlier in the year.
Further development
In January 2010, TalkTalk launched a protest against the introduction of the Digital Economy Act 2010,[25] and released a video protesting against the law called "Home taping is killing music".[26] Upon the passing of the bill TalkTalk issued a statement on the company blog confirming it would resist attempts to use the bill against their customers.[27]
In a study carried out by UK telecoms regulator Ofcom in 2010, TalkTalk was found to have average speeds of 7.7-9.3 Mbit/sec, while it was advertised as "up to" 24 Mbit/sec.[28]
TalkTalk was warned by the independent communications regulator Ofcom in November 2010 to rectify its billing systems after 62,000 incorrect bills were sent out. The company was given a deadline to correct the mistakes, which it did not meet, and in August 2011 was duly fined £3 million. Ofcom's figures showed that TalkTalk had incorrectly billed over 65,000 customers between 1 January 2010 and 4 March 2011, mainly relating to issues with integrating Tiscali UK's billing system into its own. The company had been overcharging customers for services that had not been received, resulting in the company paying an additional £2.5 million in refunds.
2015 data breach
In October 2015, TalkTalk experienced a "significant and sustained cyber-attack", during which personal and banking details of up to four million customers is thought to have been accessed.[36] TalkTalk stated they had received a ransom demand from a group claiming to be responsible.[37] Some customers complained that they were targeted by criminals before TalkTalk disclosed the cyber-attack, and the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee said "Suggestions that TalkTalk has covered up both the scale and duration of this attack ... must be thoroughly investigated."[38][39]
Having initially stated that all its customers might have been affected, on 24 October TalkTalk issued a statement saying that a "materially lower" amount of customers’ financial information was stolen, and that the stolen data was not sufficient for money to be taken from bank accounts.[40] On 6 November, TalkTalk stated that the impact of the breach was "much more limited than initially suspected", adding that 156,959 customer accounts were involved, from which 15,656 sort codes and bank account numbers had been taken.
2016 malware router infection
On 1 December 2016, TalkTalk routers were infected with a modified version of the Mirai malware, leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without Internet access, because of the inability of TalkTalk to keep the routers securely updated.[45] The malware stole the Wi-Fi passwords of the routers.[46] The handling of the Wi-Fi password breach was criticised by several cyber-security experts.[47]
Offer by Toscafund
On 17 December 2020, Toscafund Asset Management announced that it had sealed a takeover which valued TalkTalk at £1.1 billion, taking it private. Toscafund was previously TalkTalk's second largest shareholder.[48][49] The transaction was completed in March 2021.[6]
Recent history
In late 2021, TalkTalk took over the business of internet service provider Origin Broadband after Origin had amassed over £20m in losses. Origin was split into two separate legal entities, Origin Broadband and Origin Broadband Services, and together restructured as OB Telecom.[50][51]
In March 2022, it was announced that TalkTalk had acquired a London-based provider of high-bandwidth network services, Virtual1.[52]
In July 2022, it was reported that Virgin Media O2 was exploring a bid for the company.[53]
In November 2022, it was announced TalkTalk had acquired a controlling stake in the Horsham-based broadband ISP and products holding company, Telecom Acquisitions Ltd.[54]
