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TalkTalk calls time on Tiscali brand

By Stuart Turton

Posted on 7 Jan 2010 at 10:36

Carphone Warehouse has put an end to the Tiscali brand, bringing all of its broadband customers under the TalkTalk umbrella.

Carphone Warehouse bought Tiscali's UK broadband assets for a knock-down price of £236 million back in May 2009, making it the UK's largest residential broadband provider with 4.25 million subscribers.

At the time, Carphone's chief executive Charles Dunstone announced his intention to dispense with the Tiscali brand, and he's now carried through with that promise.

From today the Tiscali brand is no more and we’re committed to giving all of our customers absolute clarity about who we are

"From today the Tiscali brand is no more and we’re committed to giving all of our customers absolute clarity about who we are, the services we provide and the prices we charge," he says on the TalkTalk blog.

"We’ve gained a lot from the Tiscali acquisition, most notably TV and Portal expertise and some great people, but from today the brand name will disappear and our focus is on TalkTalk," he concludes.

Tiscali counts Pipex, Freedom2surf and Nildram among its many acquisitions, but it appears these companies will not be forced to change brand name. We've contacted the companies for confirmation, and will update the story when we know for certain.

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User comments

Oops?

"At the time, Carphone's chief executive Charles Dunstone announced his intention to dispense with the TalkTalk brand, and he's now carried through with that promise."

Shouldn't that be "dispense with the Tiscali brand"?

By dpabbott on 7 Jan 2010

Indeed. Corrected.

By StuartTurton on 7 Jan 2010

corrected?

but not on the news front page.....

By adamgashead on 7 Jan 2010

Great news!

Good news they were / are shite. Shame they didn't announce this before NYE as it would of made my celebrations even better!

By DJAd81 on 7 Jan 2010

"We’ve gained a lot from the Tiscali acquisition, most notably TV and Portal expertise"

More like "most notably a terrible reputation."

By mviracca on 7 Jan 2010

"Some great people"? Those who need six months to cancel a customer's broadband and another six months to refund overcharged money? Ridiculous!

By mader8 on 8 Jan 2010

Good riddance

Tiscali's attitude towards customer service was nothing short of abhorrent.

By mspritch on 8 Jan 2010

Customer Service?

I hope someone will post when they notice an improvement.
I seem to remember a promise that I would receive notification of any changes, then last night I couldn't get to the webmail until I changed to a TT url. The spam popup still has a Tiscali url!

By Dairs on 8 Jan 2010

I've had a few problems with Tiscali but have never been blackmailed into upgrading like Talk Talk have done. Upgrade to free weekend phone calls at no extra charge....opt out and my broadband price increases from £14.99 to £19.99. Oh and to upgrade means I'm locked into an 18 month contract despite having been with Tiscali on my present number for 18 months. Disgusting.

By twocans2 on 9 Jan 2010

Why get rid of Tiscali's customers?

Like twocans2, we received a letter saying our contract would increased from £10 to £20pm. We are now happily paying £7.50 with O2, and getting a faster speed than advertised!
What intrigues me is that TalkTalk made no effort to keep us.

By tirons1 on 11 Jan 2010