News

Reports suggest that Virgin Media O2 (VMO2) is seeking to purchase TalkTalk’s separated consumer division

This week, a report from The Telegraph suggests that VMO2 is once again in negotiations with TalkTalk related to the acquisition of the latter’s consumer business.

If such a takeover were to take place VMO2 would see TalkTalk’s roughly four million UK broadband subscribers added to their books.

Discussions are said to be in the early stages, with no deal yet agreed.

VMO2 have long expressed an interest in purchasing TalkTalk, having entered negotiations on the matter multiple times in recent years without success. Perhaps the most notable of these discussions came in 2022, when VMO2 was reportedly working towards a £3 billion takeover bid that was ultimately shelved due to unfavourable regulatory and macroeconomic conditions.

Since then, TalkTalk has struggled under the weight of its £1.1 billion debt pile and, in September last year, announced plans to break up the business into three standalone companies, focussing on wholesale, consumer broadband, and small businesses, respectively.

The company’s Business Direct unit has already been sold to the company’s own shareholders for £95 million, while the wholesale unit is currently the subject of separate discussions with both infrastructure fund Digital Bridge and Macquarie, according to reports.

In other news, VMO2 announced today that they have partnered with Hiya to make use of the latter’s AI-powered scam call blocking Hiya Protect technology. The solution uses Adaptive AI to analyse call number behaviour to help in blocking nuisance and fraudulent calls for customers.

EE is notably also partnered with Hiya for this technology.

The news comes just weeks after Ofcom announced a further crackdown on scam callers, including introducing new measures to ensure that operators are doing all in their power to prevent scam calls.

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The Shetland MSP, Beatrice Wishart, has called on the Scottish Government (SG) to “rethink” the Scottish Broadband Voucher Scheme (SBVS) after it was revealed that only around 3-4% of the c.80,000 homes and businesses eligible for support under this measure had taken it up. The voucher scheme is designed to complement the SG’s £600m Reaching […]

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Broadband ISP and mobile operator Virgin Media and O2 have today announced that they’ve become the second major UK telecoms provider, after BT (EE), to adopt Hiya’s AI-based technologies, which can analyse call behaviour in real-time and determine whether to flag an incoming call as ‘suspected spam’ or block fraud. Most of the major broadband, […]

Mobile operator Three UK has today suffered a third major network outage in the space of four days, which began at around 10:30am today and seems to have been largely resolved by 12:30pm. The latest outage attracted many more complaints than the previous event and also impacted customer services (probably due to being swamped by […]

News

The network was deployed at one of the country’s best universities, Tecnológico de Monterrey, in Monterrey

This week, AT&T Mexico has announced the activation of what they are calling the nation’s first private 5G network.

The network has been deployed at the business and technological development centre (CEDETEC) of Tecnológico de Monterrey university, one of the country’s leading universities.

Equipment has been provided by Swedish vendor Ericsson, with the project further supported by additional partnerships with Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey and local startup hub Endeavor.

The financial details of the deal were not revealed.

“5G networks will increase productivity in manufacturing, reduce CO2 emissions and save lives in mining, to name a few examples of the potential for prosperity, inclusion and sustainability in Mexico,” said AT&T México CEO, Monica Aspe, in a statement.

“Together with allies such as Ericsson, Endeavor and Tec de Monterrey, we are excited to contribute to inserting Mexico into the economy and digital society of the 21st century.”

According to AT&T, the private network will support new use cases, including AI applications, blockchain technology, improved IoT devices, and various industrial solutions.

More specifically, it will support a 5G-enabled robotics project led by the university’s robotics expert David Romero, including the development of a 5G testbed.

AT&T has been gradually growing its market share in Mexico in recent years, with private 5G deployments for enterprise and industry seen as a major opportunity for revenue growth. For the time being, however, the company remains dwarfed by America Movil in the consumer segment, with the former controlling roughly 60% of the market compared to AT&T’s 16%.

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Ding, ding.. round two. News reports claim that Virgin Media (VMO2) has allegedly revived its interest in a takeover of budget broadband ISP TalkTalk. But this time they’re reportedly focusing much more specifically upon the internet provider’s consumer division. The long-established internet and phone provider – home to almost 4 million UK broadband customers (2.4m […]

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