Communication Breakdown
Communications from the world of, er, communications. And other stuff.
Monday 22 December 2008, 12:59 PM
BSkyB/Tiscali deal reportedly falls through
According to The Grauniad, talks between BSkyB and Tiscali over the latter's UK operations being bought by the former have hit a snag over the asking price. It seems Tiscali wanted £600m, but Sky was only willing to stump up £450m.
There seem to be two key problems with Tiscali, according to the piece. One is the fact that Tiscali UK is haemorrhaging customers, and the other is its nature as a patchwork of the networks it had itself bought up (a not dissimilar situation to that of Virgin Media). Hence, integrating the billing systems and the physical networks themselves would be a nightmare for any prospective buyer.
So, it seems one of the longest-running speculation mills in the telecoms market these days is back to square one. I've asked for comment from both Tiscali and Sky, but neither has stumped up, unsurprisingly.
There seem to be two key problems with Tiscali, according to the piece. One is the fact that Tiscali UK is haemorrhaging customers, and the other is its nature as a patchwork of the networks it had itself bought up (a not dissimilar situation to that of Virgin Media). Hence, integrating the billing systems and the physical networks themselves would be a nightmare for any prospective buyer.
So, it seems one of the longest-running speculation mills in the telecoms market these days is back to square one. I've asked for comment from both Tiscali and Sky, but neither has stumped up, unsurprisingly.
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