TalkTalk Business is a business broadband, telephone, mobile phone and IT support provider owned by TalkTalk Group. The division supports approx 180,000 UK businesses, and 350 resellers, that include voice and data specialists, systems integrators and carriers.
History
TalkTalk Business was founded in 1995 by Neil McArthur as Opal Telecoms. TalkTalk Business changed its name from Opal Telecom on 1 February 2011. However it has its origins in many business divisions of telecommunications companies that have been taken over including Pipex, Opal Telecom, Freedom2surf, Nildram and Tiscali. TalkTalk Group was founded in 2003 as a subsidiary of Carphone Warehouse and was de-merged as a standalone company in March 2010. Key events:
1995: Opal Telecom founded
2000: Provision of first hosted inbound services
2002: Acquired by Carphone Warehouse for £103m
2005: Vartec, Telequip and the UK operations of One.Tel acquired
2006: Ecocall and Totem acquired
2009: TalkTalk and Carphone Warehouse demerge
2010: Opal becomes TalkTalk Business to allow it to leverage TalkTalk Group scale and brand. TalkTalk acquires UK operations of Tiscali
2011: TalkTalk Business acquired Executel and V-Networks
Products and services
TalkTalk Business provide communication products from voice and broadband connectivity, to high-end Ethernet and multi-site MPLS solutions. Other products and services promoted by TalkTalk Business include business phone lines, Ethernet in the First Mile, cloud hosting, IPVPN, Unified Communications and VOIP. TalkTalk Business’ Hosted Data Centre in Corsham is based on a modular design and fully scalable campus infrastructure. Access is protected by multi-layered security with manned 24/7 monitoring, multiple physical security perimeters and biometric scanning.
Market focus
Direct: small businesses TalkTalk Business provides products and services such as business broadband, phone lines, call recording and cloud hosting to small UK businesses in sectors such as retail, manufacturing, transport and financial services. Direct: enterprise Products and services for enterprise level businesses include multi-site WAN solutions, centralised IT infrastructure and hosted solutions and applications. TalkTalk Business provides UK based support including account management, project management and technical consultancy. The partner channel TalkTalk Business’ solutions for the partner channel are built over its Next Generation Network. The company provides partners migrating to the network with a product roadmap to help them move away from “legacy” technology. TalkTalk Business works with partners with volume requirements across the spectrum, whether their customers are SOHO or SME, Corporate or Public Sector. TalkTalk Business offer partners both managed and wholesale options. One major partner currently working with TalkTalk Business is Mitel.
