58-601: Carphone Warehouse is a mobile phone retailer based in London, United Kingdom. In August 2014 the company became a subsidiary of Currys plc (previously named "Dixons Carphone"), which was formed by the merger of its former parent Carphone Warehouse Group with Dixons Retail . Prior to this merger, Carphone Warehouse Group was listed on the London Stock Exchange , and was a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index . Following
116-454: A Sunday Times interview, TalkTalk chairman Charles Dunstone admitted that Carphone's TalkTalk business was "struggling to cope" with the more than 400,000 customers who signed up for high-speed Internet access in the time since the service launched. TalkTalk allowed customers to escape the binding 18-month contract for broadband "if it had failed to keep its service commitments in their case". Dunstone stated "In about 20% of customers there
174-510: A mobile virtual network operator using Three 's network. In April 2020, products and services from the O2 network ceased to be available from Carphone Warehouse after the companies were unable to reach a contractual agreement. In March 2020, the company announced that they would be closing all 531 stand-alone UK stores the following month, with sales operations continuing within co-located "shops within shops" at Currys PC World stores and through
232-529: A domestic energy supplier, announced a partnership to provide "connected home" services in the United Kingdom. In January 2018, Sebastian James resigned as chief executive to become president and managing director of Boots UK . Alex Baldock left his previous role as chief executive of Shop Direct (the company responsible for brands such as Very and Littlewoods) to succeed James as chief executive of Dixons Carphone. In March 2019, Dixons Carphone
290-591: A joint venture with Virgin Group . In June 2014, Carphone and Virgin agreed to sell Virgin Mobile France to Numericable for €325 million. French competition regulators, ARCEP , approved the deal in November 2014. During April 2005, customers who bought mobile phones from Carphone Warehouse retail outlets alleged that their landline accounts were subsequently switched without their consent. On 15 August 2006,
348-566: A minimum 18-month contract and a £29.99 initial connection fee. That same year, the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) challenged the legitimacy of TalkTalk's claim that this service was truly "free". Due to the high number of customers who signed up to the free broadband service, the "Free broadband forever" launch suffered complaints with regard to a long waiting list to join the broadband programme and many difficulties in contacting TalkTalk customer services. In
406-514: A mobile broadband dongle which allows users to access the Internet on the move although you already need to be an existing TalkTalk customer to sign up to these services. In 2014, TalkTalk Mobile announced its intention to switch its MVNO from Vodafone to O2. In January 2018, TalkTalk announced that it will exit the mobile provider space, and began offering its customers reaching the end of their contracts O2 deals instead. The TalkTalk brand
464-518: A modified version of the Mirai malware , leaving hundreds of thousands of customers without Internet access, because of the inability of TalkTalk to keep the routers securely updated. The malware stole the Wi-Fi passwords of the routers. The handling of the Wi-Fi password breach was criticised by several cyber-security experts. On 17 December 2020, Toscafund Asset Management announced that it had sealed
522-580: A number of companies that it had concerns about due to unsolicited telephone calls for marketing. The concerns were based on complaints. In response, TalkTalk said that it was working with the ICO to address any issues, that the ICO did not plan any enforcement action against it, and that the number of complaints about its telephone marketing calls had fallen. In early 2008 it was announced that TalkTalk had entered into an agreement (along with BT and Virgin Media) with
580-527: A protest against the introduction of the Digital Economy Act 2010 , and released a video protesting against the law called "Home taping is killing music". Upon the passing of the bill TalkTalk issued a statement on the company blog confirming it would resist attempts to use the bill against their customers. In a study carried out by UK telecoms regulator Ofcom in 2010, TalkTalk was found to have average speeds of 7.7-9.3 Mbit/sec, while it
638-467: A similar announcement from BT in the same week. On 26 July 2010, The Register reported that TalkTalk had begun harvesting URLs accessed by TalkTalk customers as part of a new anti-malware system it is developing in conjunction with Huawei , the manufacturer of its network servers. When a user accesses a web page, the URL is harvested and the servers issue the same URL request with the intention of checking
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#1732780567397696-684: A stake in Currys, which would increase during the year. In November 2023, Currys announced that they would be selling their Greek and Cypriot business, Kotsovolos, and would be leaving the South Eastern European market. Outside the UK and Ireland, the company would do business only in the Nordic countries . On 17 February 2024, Sky News reported that Elliott Investment Management was interested in buying Currys for £700M; Currys turned down
754-473: A statement saying that a "materially lower" amount of customers’ financial information was stolen, and that the stolen data was not sufficient for money to be taken from bank accounts. On 6 November, TalkTalk stated that the impact of the breach was "much more limited than initially suspected", adding that 156,959 customer accounts were involved, from which 15,656 sort codes and bank account numbers had been taken. This amounts to 4% of customers whose financial data
812-660: A takeover which valued TalkTalk at £1.1 billion, taking it private. Toscafund was previously TalkTalk's second largest shareholder. The transaction was completed in March 2021. In late 2021, TalkTalk took over the business of internet service provider Origin Broadband after Origin had amassed over £20m in losses. Origin was split into two separate legal entities, Origin Broadband and Origin Broadband Services, and together restructured as OB Telecom. In March 2022, it
870-657: Is Alex Baldock , appointed in 2018. The CFO of the business is Bruce Marsh, appointed in July 2021. The group was fined £400,000 by the Information Commissioner in January 2018, as a result of unauthorised access to the personal data of over three million customers in 2015. A further security breach, said to affect 1.2 million customers, was reported by the company in June 2018. The number of customers affected
928-522: Is compromised. There were 28,000 partial credit and debit cards stolen, but as these were "obscured" they could not be used. TalkTalk stated the lost data had not been encrypted, but they were not legally required to encrypt it. The attack cost £42m to TalkTalk and 101,000 subscribers left in the aftermath of the attack. On 5 October 2016, TalkTalk was fined £400,000 by the Information Commissioner's Office for its negligence on securing clients data. On 1 December 2016, TalkTalk routers were infected with
986-399: Is constantly under review. Clearly we are against racism. Most people understand that the person who has their name associated with the programme does not necessarily condone the content." On 18 January 2007, Carphone Warehouse announced that it had suspended its sponsorship of the show as Channel 4 had not taken sufficient action in response to the alleged racism in the show. On 8 March 2007,
1044-580: Is free to call from all landlines and mobiles. This partnership won the Charity Times Corporate Partnership Award in 2003 and the Third Sector Excellence Award for Corporate Partnership in 2006. Currys plc iD Mobile Currys plc is a British multinational electrical and telecommunications retailer and services company headquartered in London, which was formed in 2014 by
1102-685: Is some kind of problem with the phone exchange, the line, or something else. A customer satisfaction poll by uSwitch in November 2006 placed TalkTalk and Orange joint bottom for customer satisfaction. By 2005, TalkTalk had 2.5 million customers following the acquisitions of the UK subsidiaries of Tele2 for £11.5 million and One.Tel for £169.6 million. Carphone Warehouse purchased the UK ISP business of AOL in October 2006 for £370m and renamed it AOL Broadband . This had risen to 2.7 million customers by January 2009. In November 2008, Charles Dunstone
1160-656: Is thought to have been accessed. TalkTalk stated they had received a ransom demand from a group claiming to be responsible. Some customers complained that they were targeted by criminals before TalkTalk disclosed the cyber-attack, and the Chair of the Home Affairs Select Committee said "Suggestions that TalkTalk has covered up both the scale and duration of this attack ... must be thoroughly investigated." Having initially stated that all its customers might have been affected, on 24 October TalkTalk issued
1218-662: The Information Commissioner's Office issued Preliminary Enforcement Notices for breaches of PECR (The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations) against Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk for making marketing calls to people who were signed up to the Telephone Preference Service (TPS) or people who had asked that the company make no further calls to them. On 28 October 2006, in an interview in The Times , Richard Thomas , Britain's Information Commissioner , stated: We're taking action against some of
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#17327805673971276-602: The TalkTalk Business brand. Like some other UK broadband providers, TalkTalk has invested in its own exchange infrastructure, known as local-loop-unbundling (LLU), with 92% of its customer base unbundled as of December 2012. The company was listed on the London Stock Exchange until it was acquired by Toscafund Asset Management in March 2021. The Carphone Warehouse's acquisition of Opal Telecom in November 2002 gave it its own switching network providing access to BT Wholesale 's landline network. An initial trial
1334-571: The FCA's findings and qualified for a 30% discount, reducing the fine from £41.6m. In June 2019, shares in Dixons Carphone fell almost 20% following a significant decline in full year profits, mainly caused by consumers' growing delay in upgrading their mobile phones. On 3 April 2020, the company permanently closed 531 stand-alone Carphone Warehouse stores that were solely focused on telephone devices. Subsequently, 3,000 job positions related to
1392-571: The ISP. AOL Broadband closed to new business in 2014, although some AOL content is available to TalkTalk customers. Customers are also offered "Homesafe", a network-level online security and website blocking system that TalkTalk introduced in 2011. The system is aimed at parents who want to filter web content such as pornography or violence. The company is one of seven partners in the television venture YouView and provides IPTV services including access to YouView. It first inherited an IPTV service from
1450-609: The Internet access business of AOL in the United Kingdom for £370m. Also in that month, it was announced that Geek Squad would be launching in the United Kingdom, in a 50/50 joint venture between Carphone Warehouse and Best Buy . In May 2008, Best Buy agreed to buy a 50% share in Carphone Warehouse's retail business for £1.1 billion, to launch the Best Buy Europe joint venture, named CPW Europe. Best Buy and Carphone Warehouse also opened joint venture stores in
1508-730: The United States. Ross, by now a non-executive director, resigned from the board in December 2008. In 2010, the broadband and home phone business was spun off as TalkTalk . In May 2014, Carphone Warehouse Group and Dixons Retail announced their merger to create Dixons Carphone . The merger completed on 7 August 2014. The Dixons Group staff moved into 1 Portal Way, the original home of Carphone Warehouse in West London, in May 2015. In May 2015, Carphone Warehouse launched iD Mobile ,
1566-461: The affected stores were cut. According to the firm, the reason behind the closure of the stores was the online shift of customers and a lesser extent of phone upgrades. Following the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic , on 4 August 2020, Dixons Carphone announced 800 job cuts in response to increased costs. The company also announced plans to re-organise its operations in its bigger stores. Regarding
1624-645: The business would merge into TalkTalk ahead of the planned demerger. The Carphone Warehouse's full-year earnings statement in November 2009 revealed the TalkTalk customer base had risen to 4.1 million following the purchase of Tiscali UK earlier in the year. Tiscali UK closed to new business on 7 January 2010, and its portal content moved to the TalkTalk website. In March 2010, TalkTalk and Carphone Warehouse demerged becoming publicly listed companies. Dido Harding became CEO of TalkTalk and Roger Taylor CEO of New Carphone Warehouse. In January 2010, TalkTalk launched
1682-545: The closure of all stand-alone UK stores in April 2020, all remaining Carphone Warehouse UK outlets were within branches of Currys PC World . In April 2021, the Carphone Warehouse business in Ireland (including all stand-alone and co-located branches and the website) was closed with immediate effect. Currys continued to use the Carphone Warehouse brand in the United Kingdom, online and, until 2021, inside Currys stores. The company
1740-474: The company bought Tandy 's operations in the United Kingdom for £9 million. In July 2000, Carphone Warehouse issued an IPO . In July 2001, Johnson sold the majority of his stake and retired. Carphone Warehouse bought Opal Telecom in November 2002. In 2003, Ross started to step down from the COO role. In July 2005, he became deputy chairman. On 10 October 2006, the Carphone Warehouse announced that it would purchase
1798-591: The company paying an additional £2.5 million in refunds. In November 2014, TalkTalk reached an agreement to purchase the ADSL business of Virgin Media , allowing Virgin to focus on its cable broadband offering. Customers were due to begin transferring to TalkTalk from February 2015. On 8 January 2015, it was confirmed that TalkTalk would purchase the on-demand entertainment service Blinkbox and broadband business of Tesco for around £5 million. The purchase of Blinkbox
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1856-683: The company permanently dropped its sponsorship of the show. In April 2011, Carphone Warehouse sponsored the Appy Awards , calling them "the United Kingdom’s first major app awards ceremony designed to recognise innovation and development in app technology". In October 2001, Carphone Warehouse established a corporate partnership with Get Connected UK , a confidential helpline service for young people, that continues today as " The Mix ". Carphone Warehouse supplies Get Connected with office and helpline equipment and has been instrumental in ensuring it
1914-428: The company retracted its sponsorship agreement. TalkTalk began sponsoring The X Factor in 2008, and extended the agreement with ITV plc in May 2013. In 2005 TalkTalk was accused of using the practice of telephone slamming (changing consumers' residential phone line over to a new provider without their consent). In November 2012 the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) publicly listed TalkTalk as one of
1972-514: The company was fined £400,000 by the ICO for "multiple inadequacies" in Carphone's security processes, including using old software and failing to carry out routine security testing. Intruders were able to access personal information, including the names, addresses, phone numbers, dates of birth, marital status and, in more than 18,000 cases, historical payment card details of customers of Carphone Warehouse. On 19 June 2007, Carphone Warehouse became
2030-471: The company was in financial difficulties and struggling to refinance over £1bn in outstanding borrowings. TalkTalk provides broadband and landline telephone services for private households. The company provides these services generally together in packages, but also separately. Services were also provided under the AOL Broadband brand, which has been used under licence since Carphone Warehouse bought
2088-479: The decision, the firm's chief operating officer stated that they wanted "to empower store leadership teams, create a flatter management structure and make it easy for customers to shop with us." The business was renamed from Dixons Carphone to Currys plc in September 2021. The Currys brand also replaced the company's PC World , Team Knowhow and Carphone Warehouse brands. In June 2023, Frasers Group acquired
2146-430: The former spyware company Phorm to intercept and analyse their users' click-stream data , and sell the anonymised aggregate information as part of Phorm's OIX advertising service. At the time, TalkTalk confirmed that the new Phorm system, when implemented, would be a strictly opt-in service. In July 2009, Charles Dunstone, CEO of TalkTalk Group announced that TalkTalk had withdrawn plans to introduce Phorm, along with
2204-577: The loss of 160 jobs. Some employees were transferred to the centre in Waterford, which at the time was advertising 60 positions. On 7 September 2011 it was announced that the Waterford call centre would cease operations within 30 days. There was speculation in the Irish press that the jobs would be relocated to Southeast Asia and the UK. The Government of Ireland and its agencies criticised how TalkTalk and its subsidiary TalkTalk Ireland Ltd. dealt with
2262-464: The merger of Dixons Retail and Carphone Warehouse Group . It is listed on the London Stock Exchange and is a constituent of the FTSE 250 Index . The company operates under a number of brands in the United Kingdom, Ireland and mainland Europe. These include Currys in the United Kingdom and Ireland and Elkjøp , Elgiganten Gigantti in the Nordics . Following shareholder agreement in July 2014,
2320-548: The offer. A leading shareholder in Currys demanded that the company's board not engage with potential suitor Elliott Advisors unless it proposed a minimum offer of 75p-a-share, valuing the retailer at around £800m, amid claims that a 62p-a-share offer from Elliott undervalued the company. The company owns the following brands: 2020 (Nordics) The company's board is chaired by Ian Livingston . The non-executive directors are Andrea Gisle Joosen, Eileen Burbidge , Fiona McBain, Gerry Murphy and Tony DeNunzio. The CEO of Currys plc
2378-743: The official sponsor of the fourth series of The X Factor . The sponsorship deal was to last for three years. Carphone Warehouse also became the sponsor of its spin off show, The Xtra Factor . After Carphone Warehouse and TalkTalk split, TalkTalk took over the sole sponsorship of The X Factor . The company were the sponsors for the United Kingdom's version of Big Brother from 2004 to 2007. In 2006, they also sponsored Celebrity Big Brother and related Celebrity Big Brother shows on Channel 4 . On 17 January 2007, in response to alleged racism in Celebrity Big Brother , Charles Dunstone said: "We are talking to Channel 4. The sponsorship
Carphone Warehouse - Misplaced Pages Continue
2436-892: The previous year, with the changes in the mobile market and customer shopping behaviour being accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic . Owner Dixons Carphone noted that it would continue to sell phones and accessories in Ireland through Currys PC World stores and the Currys website. On 8 May 2009, Carphone Warehouse agreed to pay £236m in cash for the United Kingdom assets of Tiscali , an Italian telecoms group. Tiscali UK later became part of TalkTalk . In March 2010, TalkTalk and Carphone Warehouse split and Dido Harding became CEO of TalkTalk, and Roger Taylor CEO of New Carphone Warehouse. Dunstone remained Chairman of both companies. On 30 April 2013, Carphone Warehouse agreed to purchase Best Buy's 50% stake in Best Buy Europe for £500 million. Carphone Warehouse owned 46% of Virgin Mobile France in
2494-516: The purchase of Tiscali and renamed it TalkTalk TV in January 2010. TalkTalk closed the service to new business that year and in August 2012 introduced its new service including YouView, TalkTalk Plus TV . In late 2010 TalkTalk launched a mobile telephone service called TalkTalk Mobile, which operates as a mobile virtual network operator on the Vodafone UK network. TalkTalk have also launched
2552-692: The site for malicious code. TalkTalk claims that no personally identifiable information is being harvested however, like Phorm , some users argue there are some potential legal issues with this harvesting of information. Under relevant UK legislation, URLs are deemed communications content and interception without permission is prohibited. TalkTalk briefly offered broadband services in Ireland, but sold their operations to Digiweb . They had significant service centres, inherited from AOL and Toucan, for UK customers based in Waterford and Sligo . The Sligo centre, originally opened for Toucan, closed in 2010 with
2610-578: The telecom companies, Talk Talk and Carphone Warehouse. We're taking action against them because we've had a lot of complaints that they've been telephoning people with marketing calls, people whose name is on the telephone preference service. And then we do these prosecutions, particularly with private detectives. We've got a big case coming up. On 5 August 2015, hackers gained access to customer data for 2.4 million people who had used sites operated by Carphone Warehouse, including OneStopPhoneShop.com, e2save.com, Mobiles.co.uk and TalkTalk Group. In January 2018,
2668-429: The website. It was said that this measure was a result of the changing mobile market. On 21 April 2021, the company announced that the entire business in Ireland, including all 69 standalone stores in Ireland, 12 outlets within other stores, and the carphonewarehouse.ie website would close with immediate effect, with the loss of 486 jobs. The company stated the closures were in line with the decision to close all UK stores
2726-489: The £3.8 billion merged entity was launched on 7 August 2014; on the first day of trading the shares in the merged business were owned 50:50 by the former Dixons Retail and former Carphone Warehouse shareholders. Carphone Warehouse's Sir Charles Dunstone was appointed chairman, and Sebastian James became chief executive. On the first day of trading, the company opened Carphone Warehouse concessions in seven PC World or Currys stores. In December 2016, Dixons and SSE ,
2784-641: Was advertised as "up to" 24 Mbit/sec. TalkTalk was warned by the independent communications regulator Ofcom in November 2010 to rectify its billing systems after 62,000 incorrect bills were sent out. The company was given a deadline to correct the mistakes, which it did not meet, and in August 2011 was duly fined £3 million. Ofcom's figures showed that TalkTalk had incorrectly billed over 65,000 customers between 1 January 2010 and 4 March 2011, mainly relating to issues with integrating Tiscali UK's billing system into its own. The company had been overcharging customers for services that had not been received, resulting in
2842-525: Was announced that TalkTalk had acquired a London -based provider of high-bandwidth network services, Virtual1. In July 2022, it was reported that Virgin Media O2 was exploring a bid for the company. In November 2022, it was announced TalkTalk had acquired a controlling stake in the Horsham -based broadband ISP and products holding company, Telecom Acquisitions Ltd. It was reported in July 2024 that
2900-413: Was co-founded in 1989 by Sir Charles Dunstone and Julian Brownlie, who put £6,000 into the company from their savings. Guy Johnson of NEC UK became the second partner at the company, later taking up the role of Logistics and Distribution director. In 1990, Dunstone brought in his school friend David Ross , a chartered accountant , who became Chief Operating Officer in the same year. In January 1999,
2958-597: Was conducted in the Manchester region, and three months later, TalkTalk launched with a guarantee that calls would be cheaper than with their perceived chief competitor BT . TalkTalk Broadband was launched in November 2004. On 11 April 2006, TalkTalk launched a new broadband service which was promoted as "Free broadband forever" and which offered up to 8 Mbit/s with a 40 GB monthly usage limit for life to all subscribers to their Talk3 International telephone tariff at £20.99/month. Conditions included signing up for
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#17327805673973016-416: Was created with the help of British songwriter Dan Bull . In April 2024, Mark Heap was the lead in a series of radio advertisements for TalkTalk written and directed by Rich Johnston and produced by Radioville . In 2004 TalkTalk won the sponsorship rights to Big Brother from the UK mobile firm O2 . Sponsorship continued until the racism controversy of Celebrity Big Brother 5 after which
3074-505: Was finalised immediately, and the transfer of broadband and home telephone customers was due to be completed by the end of 2015. TalkTalk confirmed it would merge Blinkbox into its existing services. Also in early 2015, TalkTalk transferred 108,000 broadband customers outside its LLU network to Fleur Telecom, a subsidiary of Daisy Group . In October 2015, TalkTalk experienced a "significant and sustained cyber-attack", during which personal and banking details of up to four million customers
3132-461: Was founded in 2003 as a subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse and was demerged as a standalone company in March 2010. Its headquarters are in Salford . Originally, just a provider of fixed line telephone services to consumers, TalkTalk now offers fixed and mobile telephone and broadband services to consumers under the TalkTalk brand, and telephone and broadband services to business customers under
3190-495: Was given a £29.1m fine from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) for mis-selling its Geek Squad services. The FCA found that the company's staff were trained to sell the service to customers who already had an insurance cover. During the period under investigation, between 1 December 2008 and 30 June 2015, Carphone Warehouse sold Geek Squad policies worth more than £444.7m. Dixons Carphone did not contest
3248-405: Was later increased to 10 million. TalkTalk Group TalkTalk Telecom Group Limited (formerly New TalkTalk plc from 2009–2010 and TalkTalk Telecom Group plc from 2010–2021; commonly known as TalkTalk Group , trading as TalkTalk ) is a British telecommunications company that provides pay television and Internet access services to businesses and consumers in the United Kingdom. It
3306-477: Was launched with a number of high-profile TV advertisements in 2003, featuring the former public face of BT, Maureen Lipman . TalkTalk's first slogan, "It's good to talk, but it's better to TalkTalk", mocked BT's own "It's good to talk" slogan. In March 2010, TalkTalk released a parody music video of Home Taping Is Killing Music to protest against the Digital Economy Act 2010 . The video features look-alike performers Madonna , George Michael , and Adam Ant . It
3364-548: Was reported to be looking to demerge TalkTalk from the main Carphone Warehouse business. The split was confirmed in April 2009, with plans for TalkTalk to become a separate listed company. Carphone Warehouse agreed to purchase the UK subsidiary of Tiscali in May 2009 for £236 million. The purchase was approved by the European Union Competition Commission in June 2009, and the sale was completed on 6 July 2009. Carphone Warehouse confirmed
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