TalkTalk has created two new wholesale divisions and announced its intention to launch a competitive tender.
The Salford-headquartered group said the newly formed TalkTalk Business Wholesale Services division will be led by Tom O’Hagan, founder and CEO of Virtual1, which was acquired in April.
It will offer “premium and high bandwidth” services to resellers, aggregators and system integrators and will trade as two brands: TalkTalk Wholesale Services and Virtual1.
The newly formed Consumer Wholesale Services division will be led by Nick Gunga, current managing director of Wholesale. The division has over one million residential customers including the recently acquired SSE Phone and Telecom base from OVO as well as long term customers Telecom Plus and Shell Energy.
TalkTalk has also announced its intention to competitively tender its B2B Ethernet supply.
Tristia Harrison, CEO of TalkTalk Group, said: “The pace of innovation in both the B2B and Consumer wholesale telecoms has accelerated, and businesses and consumers across the UK are requiring more and more usage and great bandwidth connectivity.
“That is why we are delighted to be announcing these two important wholesale growth divisions as well as a competitive tender for our B2B Ethernet supply.
“We are also delighted to welcome Tom O’Hagan and the wider Virtual 1 team to the group and very excited about the future growth projections for the business.”
Mr O’Hagan, founder and CEO of Virtual 1, MD of TalkTalk Business Wholesale Services, added: “The combination of TalkTalk’s national scale and Virtual1’s market leading software was always going to be a winner. The creation of this new division will allow us to bring all those advantages to customers more quickly and at greater scale.”
Nick Gunga, MD of TalkTalk Consumer Wholesale Services, said: “Our vision is to become the fastest growing provider of consumer services in the wholesale market.
“We already are market leading in this area, and we can use our experience to further deepen our relationships with our key partners. We will be able to focus on being the best we can for our customers, and we can’t wait to start.”
The news comes after reports emerged in July that a move to takeover TalkTalk, the internet giant that went back into private hands in a £1.1bn deal last year, is being eyed up by Virgin Media O2. The potential deal could value the company at in the region of £3bn.
