Virgin Media sells 100,000 broadband customers to TalkTalk

Virgin Media has offloaded its remaining 100,000 ADSL customers to rival TalkTalk.

Virgin only offered ADSL as a sop to customers who weren’t within reach of its cable network, but never really promoted the ADSL service nor put much effort into building its ADSL customer base.

Now, the company has clearly decided those 100,000 customers are surplus to requirements and has sold those connections to TalkTalk.

“We are pleased to have agreed this deal which reflects the scale and quality of our network,” said a spokesperson for TalkTalk. “We look forward to welcoming these customers to TalkTalk and will be working closely with Virgin Media to ensure the process goes as smoothly as possible. These customers will be able to benefit from our full range of great value products, including TV and mobile, and we aim to make all of them better off.”

As noted by ThinkBroadband.com, the transfer of those customers could see TalkTalk overtake Virgin Media to become the third largest broadband provider in the country, behind BT and Sky. Virgin reported 4.4 million broadband customers in its Q2 results, while TalkTalk has 4.2 million.

Virgin Media has recently started to expand its cable network, after years of limited growth. Earlier this year it announced it was connecting a further 100,000 homes in East London and just this week said it was connecting another 5,000 homes in Glasgow.

In September, Virgin said it was experimenting with a new micro-trench technique that would make fibre rollouts less costly, a further sign that it was ramping up its engineering efforts.

TalkTalk is also experimenting with an end-to-end fibre network in York. It currently buys wholesale access to BT’s fibre network, but has repeatedly complained of its inability to turn a profit from the wholesale agreement.