Tiscali packs up UK service
LONG SUFFERING broadband provider Tiscali looks like it has finally given up in Britain as the company confirms its talks with satellite broadcaster BSkyB to sell its UK business.
BSkyB is rumoured to have put in a £450 million bid for the Italian company’s 1.8m broadband customers – that is around £100m less than other valuations of the UK business.
This deal would certainly be important for BSkyB as it would mean overtaking Carphone Warehouse to become the third largest UK Internet provider behind BT and Virgin Media.
Sky has previously only sold broadband to its TV customers – this deal would open the opportunity of cross-selling its TV package to existing Tiscali's subscribers.
Although there is some speculation over whether this deal will actually go through, Tiscali has confirmed that it is currently holding talks with the BSkyB Group.
Vodafone, Carphone Warehouse and BT – companies which have all previously expressed interest in the deal – have ceased talks with the Italian provider.
Vodafone was the largest bidder, interested in both the Italian and UK arms of the company which were at one point worth around £1.3 billion – yet this was obviously not an option for Tiscali as the offers just weren’t high enough.
John Davies, telecoms analyst at Dresdner Kleinwort said, “We have had announcements almost as detailed as this before so it is not certain that the deal will close. It seems to be a more sensible price. It would be a bit of a change of strategy for BSkyB.”
So, change of strategy, more reasonable price tag – this may be the offer Tiscali has been waiting for – as soon as we know what happens, you will too. µ
L'Inq
The Times
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I wonder if it goes through what Sky will do with the existing Tiscalli Video On Demand service

Rob
"LONG SUFFERING broadband provider Tiscali looks like it has finally given up in Britain "

Perhaps if Tiscali has actually cared about customer service, rather than dumping on every customer they ever had, then they might have flourished, as it is, nobody wants a ISP that charges the same as everyone else, but offers piss-poor service...
Just like to say that i have had Tiscali for years and it never goes off- it's fast as hell- and a call threatening to cancel made it free for the next 3 months then £8 a month. i am very happy with them!

I have sky too though and now wondering if they will put their equipment in my local exchange so I can get "free" sky broadband and use the money for their HD service instead :)
I spent 4 months with these jokers trying to get more than 40-50K per second at peak hours with a 2.5Mbit sync and "up to 8Mbit" package. Went through all their pointless testing routines and tech non-help staff many times (lovely 2 line scripts they have). The problem naturally disappeared for some "inexplicable reason" late at night and in the small hours or the morning. But they weren't throttling , no sir it "must be my cabling" etc. I gave up switched providers and paid a few more quid and by some crazy magic I immediately have a consistent 250-300K down the same day on the exact same set uo. Their help forums are full of this type of thing.
You mean Homechoice? Keep it on life support until everyone forgets about it. Should have happened years ago.... Oh, actually, it already did.