Charles Dunstone has a good reason to be cheerful at the moment – despite the TalkTalk name suffering in the press ever since the mad rush for free broadband last year, the ISP has been successful in adding an extra 126,000 customers to its services, overtaking Tiscali’s position as the third biggest provider of broadband and phone services in the UK.

It is estimated that over 60% of these customers access TalkTalk services outside CW’s LLU network, and so the company loses money to BT this way, but overall things are looking good. Profits are reinforced by strong sales in the mobile phone sector, which, thanks to the imminent arrival of the zeitgeist-gadget-in-waiting iPhone, is set to get stronger.

TalkTalk also introduced free broadband with their Talk2 phone plan this month, providing a cost-effective broadband solution for punters.

In a bid to match Orange in the free hardware stakes, Carphone Warehouse have done a deal with Dell which sees customers who sign up for a two-year contract with AOL Broadband at £19.99 a month – presumably this means the 2Mbps Silver package plus the Talk Evening and Weekends plan. This deal is set to go live in September, at the start of Q3.

Sky announced that profits for year up until 30th June 2007 were down 9% but revenues were up 10% - this is said to be a result of Sky’s entry into the UK Broadband market and having to move into a fiercely competitive market place.

The purchase of EasyNet left a £23 million dent in Sky, and the acquisition of residential customers over the last 12 months has seen the company lose nearly £170 million.

However Sky has also invested heavily in LLU, unbundling in close to 1200 UK exchanges meaning that the full range of their ‘See Speak Surf’ will be available to more people. Sky had also set themselves a target of signing up 700,000 customers within their first year of operating; there are currently 716,000 UK customers subscribing to the full range of Sky services.

Tiscali has been rapped on the knuckles by the ASA over an advert for its broadband services on a number of commercial radio stations.

Aside from listening to Rick Wakeman mumble his way through unfunny sex jokes on a Saturday morning, Planet Rock listeners have until recently been treated to the offending advert, in which a man repeatedly sings about the price for Tiscali’s broadband services – not only is the advert highly annoying, but is also a bit of a fib.

The price of ‘£9.99′ is repeated several more times, before the man states the terms and conditions at the end of the advert, in a near inaudible voice, stating that the price is actually “£9.99 a month for the first three months, then £14.99 [thereafter].”

Alongside members of the public, rival ISP BT complained to ASA about the ad, claiming it was misleading.

Tiscali accused BT of hypocrisy, claiming that “a current BT national press ad displayed a price of £8.95 with the £17.99 thereafter price within their disclaimer in very small print.”

The ruling was based on the fact that the introductory price was announced repeatedly with the affect that the cheaper price was emphasised and on a first listen, the less obtuse price might be missed – by comparison, the BT press campaign clearly displays the two prices, and doesn’t mention the introductory price with the same frequency or degree of urgency.

At the behest of the ASA, which has in the past scuppered an erroneous Orange campaign, Tiscali withdrew the advert from the airwaves.

BT is reportedly considering speeding up its converged broadband services by implementing a full fibre-to-the-home, or FttH network across the country.

The incumbent telco, currently preparing its much talked about country-wide ASDL 2+ 21stC Network which will, hopefully, see broadband services being able to reach remote rural addresses, and see existing broadband punters able to enjoy 24Mbps download speeds.

It is estimated that if BT unveiled a full FttH network based on current technology costs, punters would be able to achieve broadband speeds of 40-50Mbps, faster than anything currently available in the UK but still far off the ridiculous 100Mbps speed available in other countries, namely Sweden, South Korea and Japan.

Still, this is a positive step in the right direct and hopefully an indicator of things to come, as the digital TV switchover, due to start next year, looms closer, more and more customers will want to have access to a variety of services - TV, phone, broadband – all delivered through one medium.

The only other ISP currently making extensive use of fibre optic technology is Virgin Media, who since their launch in March this year has made much of its multitude of services all delivered via cable.

The registration process for the Internet Service Providers Association’s annual awards ceremony has begun. ISPA, the industry group that the majority of the UK broadband movers and shakers are members of, run an award ceremony every year, with awards and prizes being handed out to providers who top categories such as Best Consumer ISP, Best Business ISP, and Best Consumer email amongst others.

This will be the tenth time the ISPAs has taken place since the beginning of the ceremonies way back in 1999.

Eclipse Internet won the Best Consumer Broadband prize of the 2007 awards, with Orange picking up the Corporate Social Responsibility Award, and Tiscali receiving the Best portal Award.

Annie Mullins of Vodafone won the Internet Hero award for her efforts to make the internet safer for children, and EU Commissioner Viviane Reding, someone who has been a persistent thorn in the side of Sky, won the title of Internet Villain. Providers have until the end of August to complete the registration process and become eligible for nomination.

Orange have followed BT’s lead in slashing the monthly charge for their broadband services in half for the first three months of a contract. The Orange Broadband Starter, usually costing £14.99 a month is now down to £7.49 for the first 3 months, and Orange Unlimited, costs £9.99 for the first 3 months instead of the usual £19.99.

Orange have also done a deal with computer retailer PC World, which sees those who sign up for a 2-year broadband deal with Orange can qualify for a free laptop worth £300, or choose to knock the equivalent sum off of the price of a more expensive model.

This deal gives punters a 24 month subscription to the Orange Starter Broadband service, which provides an up to 2MB connection and a 2GB per month download limit, not a bad service, but with the slow proliferation of ADSL2+ technology, a 2MB may feel a little bit more than old hat in two years time.

Mind you, if you are after something just to check and send emails and you fancy the look of a laptop in PC World and wouldn’t mind getting a bit of money off, then this isn’t a bad move.

The free laptop on offer has a 15.4″ widescreen, Celeron processor, 256MB of memory and a 40GB hard drive. More details can be found at Orange’s website.

In response to Tiscali’s snapping up of Pipex, PlusNet have launched a special offer to all ex-Pipex customers who feel daunted by the prospect of the takeover.

Former customers of Pipex, and all of the smaller ISPs which that company itself had absorbed, will be able to migrate to any of the PlusNet packages and enjoy the first month for nothing.

“Tiscali acquiring Pipex will create massive customer churn in the consumer broadband market,” said Neil Armstrong, PlusNet big cheese. “Pipex is ranked fifth for customer service by uSwitch and Tiscali ranked seventh. We expect Pipex customers will react to this move by voting with their feet. Broadband users want speed, reliability and first class customer service, not mass market offerings.”

Customers who also shift their home phone services to PlusNet will receive both services for free in the first month, as well as being able to enjoy PlusNet’s existing 90 day guarantee.

Tiscali are all set to seal the deal with Pipex today, with Tiscali paying out £210 million for the broadband and phone areas of the business, which will net the triple-play provider 570,000 ADSL customers, making its current 3rd place position a little more comfortable.

Tiscali, who have recently signed a deal with Sky which will see a range of channels including those conspicuously absent from Virgin Media’s TV platform, available to Tiscali customers who are able to receive Tiscali TV – an IPTV platform similar to BT Vision.

The ability to offer a TV option to a number of new customers puts Tiscali in direct competition with the big players – time will tell if it can retain this position throughout the year and grow to become a dominant force in the market.

Pipex has been looking for a buyer since March, after years of spending millions on acquiring other small ISPs and wiping out debt, Pipex, one of the first outfits to supply internet services to businesses, has become an acquisition itself.

It’s been another bad week for TalkTalk, who despite promises of investing heavily into customer services, have seen their name very publicly dragged through the mud after one former customer successfully sued the ISP for £630 in the small claims court.

Ann Gordon, a retired languages teacher, had seen her phoneline pack up after switching from BT to TalkTalk, and be left without any kind of service for almost six weeks, despite repeated promises that a temporary mobile service would be supplied for which she would be reimbursed. In a post that Mrs Gordon made at thisismoney.co.uk, she wrote:

“We had 39 days, no phone, so no internet; no apology, no explanation. They offered £20 (already paid by us) which never appeared. We asked for a refund of 2 months direct debit, plus mobile phone charges (promised us on the phone!), but never saw a penny.”

After 39 days without a phone or the internet, Mrs Gordon asked to be switched back to BT who, sorted out her problem in under 20 minutes.

Appearing on BBC Breakfast News this morning, Mrs Gordon described TalkTalk’s customer service as “Kafkaesque,” and in a report in last Saturday’s Guardian she is quoted saying “All my letters to TalkTalk - including to the managing director - got no response… I did everything I could to resolve this matter. Even after the successful judgment in court, they still refused to pay up, and I was forced to spend another £55 to instruct the bailiffs.”

It was later revealed that TalkTalk were apparently ‘unaware’ of the situation until bailiffs turned up at their London offices. A statement issued last week reads: “We will obviously abide by the court’s decision and will be paying her immediately. We are very sorry that it came to this and would like to unreservedly apologise.”

BT has stumped up £15.8m in cash for UK-based Brightview, the ISP group behind internet access from Waitrose, Global, and Madasafish.

The Brightview ISPs had a total of around 62,000 broadband customers, which will now be able to make use of BT’s exclusive products and services such as the Goth Hub, BT Vision and BT Fusion.

BT Retail chief executive Ian Livingstone said: “This acquisition will ensure that Brightview’s customers can benefit from our market-leading services, resources, and technology development as well as the excellent customer service they’re already receiving.”

Last year, BT swallowed tier-2 ISP PlusNet for a cool £67m, and has further cemented its position at the top of the heap with this comparatively wafer-thin after dinner mint. BT was also rumoured to be interested in Pipex earlier this year, but these rumours fizzled out; Tiscali are instead mooted to take over the Hoff-affiliated ISP.