History
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.
Several high profile TV advertising campaigns commenced in 2003, initially under the first TalkTalk brand utilising the former public face of BT, Maureen Lipman. It appeared that TalkTalk was going head to head with BT with the slogan "It's good to Talk, but it's better to TalkTalk", mocking BT's "It's good to Talk" slogan. In the following years TalkTalk invested heavily in TV advertising and has won several awards for creativity. TalkTalk Broadband was launched in November 2004. The free broadband offer was later launched in April 2006. The company was criticised several times for making exaggerated claims such as "Free Broadband Forever" which later turned out to be misleading.
The acquisitions of the UK operations of Tele2 for £11.5m and One.Tel for £169.6m culminated in TalkTalk now having 2.5m customers. The Carphone Warehouse purchased the UK ISP business of AOL in October 2006 for £370m and renamed it AOL Broadband.
In June 2009 a £236 million deal to purchase Tiscali UK by Carphone Warehouse was approved by the European Union Competition Commission. The acquisition was completed on 6 July 2009 with the business becoming part of TalkTalk. At the time Carphone Warehouse announced that TalkTalk would be spun out from the group as a separate listed company, with the Tiscali, AOL Broadband and TalkTalk brands all coming together as one brand eventually.
According to the January 2009 financial announcement by Carphone Warehouse plc, TalkTalk had 2.7 million customers. The Carphone Warehouse's full-year earnings statement in November 2009 revealed the TalkTalk customer base had risen to 4.12 million following the purchase of Tiscali UK earlier in the year. TalkTalk was the sponsor of the sixth series of the The X Factor, which started on 22 August 2009.
TalkTalk announced in December 2009 that customers with just broadband services would be encouraged to subscribe to a telephone service or pay an extra £5 monthly charge. On 7 January 2010, Tiscali UK closed to new business and the company's portal content was moved to the TalkTalk website.
In March 2010, TalkTalk and Carphone Warehouse demerged becoming publicly listed companies. Dido Harding became CEO of TalkTalk and Roger Taylor CEO of New Carphone Warehouse.
In 2011 TalkTalk launched HomeSafe, a network-level online security and website blocking system aimed at parents who want to filter web content such as pornography or violence.
In August 2011, TalkTalk was fined £3 million by the independent telecommunications regulator Ofcom for incorrectly billing over 65,000 customers between 1 January 2010 and 4 March 2011. The company had been overcharging customers for services that had not been received which resulted in the company paying an additional £2.5 million in refunds. Ofcom warned TalkTalk in November 2010 to rectify their billing problem after 62,000 incorrect bills were issued and were given a deadline which they did not meet.
Read more about this topic: Talk Talk (telecommunications Company)
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