Carphone Warehouse is to sell 50 percent of its retail business to giant US retail chain Best Buy for a cool £1.1bn, and plans to funnel the cash into an overhaul of its broadband infrastructure.

Carphone, who operate TalkTalk and own AOL’s UK broadband services, will keep the remaining 50 percent of their stake in their domestic retail business, which will eventually lead to Best Buy-branded stores opening up across in Europe; despite this, Carphone will hold on to all of its telecoms concerns.

It is thought that the majority of the investment will go toward getting ADSL2+ connectivity rolled out across both providers, as well as expanding availability through the LLU/BT Openreach program in order to keep up with providers such as Be Broadband, Sky and Virgin Media all of whom either offer ADSL2+ solutions or next-gen speeds.

Data from samknows.com reveals that TalkTalk have installed equipment in 1,632 exchanges to date, with another 31 currently awaiting installation. By comparison, AOL has equipment in 1,049 exchanges, with no more exchanges slated as of yet. This could all change in the coming months however; keep checking back here to see what services you can sign up for at your exchange.

From today, O2 Home Broadband is available in all homes throughout the UK, thanks to a deal inked with BT which allows O2 to supply broadband to customers using both their own and BT’s wholesale network, allowing O2 Pay Monthly mobile subscribers everywhere to take advantage of discounts off the cost of next-gen broadband. O2 will still continue to install equipment in BT exchanges through Be Broadband, but for now, this venture means that punters who have wanted to sign up with O2 Broadband can do so.

To make punters aware of the nationwide availability of the service, O2 are launching a high visibility £6 million ad campaign. The new campaign, dubbed “Happy Homes” will feature on TV, in papers and posters and on trains and tubes. The print ads feature a series of houses with strategically positioned windows, doors and fences to create the impression that the buildings are smiling.

O2’s Home Broadband Access package will cost from £17.50 per month for O2 customers, representing excellent value for customers when compared to similar services delivered over BT’s wholesale network by competitor providers. Prices for O2 Home Broadband delivered over O2’s own LLU network start from £7.50 per month for O2 customers.

Al O2 customers can benefit from free UK-based tech support and customer service, unlimited downloads, free connection and wireless kit and no connection fees.

Information posted on Samknows reveals that BT Wholesale have at last released the schedule for the first 868 exchanges to be activated for Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC), their new 21CN broadband product. The new product will bring ADSL2+ nationwide, but as predicted, rollout may take until 2012 to reach all corners of the UK.

BT’s current timetable sees them aiming to have 82 exchanges enabled by the 30th of April, followed by 540 exchanges by the 18th of November 2008 and 868 by the 19th May 2009.

21CN is expected to take up most of BT’s £3bn budget for investment between 2004 and 2009. Once the rollout is complete, high-speed connections should be universally available across the UK, over both fixed line (a mixture of copper and cable) and wireless (WiMax) links. The upgrade will also see phones as we known them changing; on 21CN every phone will be a VoIP phone; no traditional telephone services will exist.

“This is the most radical strategy of a telco business you will see anywhere in the world. It’s fundamentally based on broadband everywhere,” said Paul Reynolds, chief executive of BT Wholesale. “We will have a single network running multiple services, not multiple networks running multiple services in a complicated way.”

ADSL2+ is capable of doubling the downstream bitrate of ADSL speeds, and it is theoretically possible to achieve top download speeds of 24Mbps. Be Broadband is the most notable exponent of ADSL2+ as are Sky and UK Online, both of which use the Easynet backbone; O2 have also launched their own services following their purchase of the Be network.

A report by telecoms research body Point Topic says that Sky has retained its position as the fastest growing ISP in the UK, according to sales figures from the past five quarters. In the three months up to last December, the triple-play company netted a further 260,000 broadband customers, which equates to 42 per cent of new broadband customers during that period.

The success of Sky Broadband has largely been credited to the popular SeeSpeakSurf bundle, which sees broadband included free with Sky TV, their killer app, and fixed line phone calls. Sky was also the first ISP to offer free wireless routers to customers, allowing home networks to be set up quickly and easily. Rival providers Be, AOL, Tiscali and others quickly followed suit.

Sky entered the broadband market under its own name nearly two years ago, after buying Easynet for a cool £211 million. Sky wasted no time investing into the LLU scheme, unbundling at a furious rate. SeeSpeakSurf launched in 2006 and late last year, Sky announced that it had connected its millionth customer. Sky also purchased ADSL2+ ISP UK Online, who specialise in providing next-gen ADSL broadband to SME customers.

It appears that O2 plan to match Tiscali’s new business SME packages that the Italian Stallion has just launched through Pipex. A new fixed-line broadband service will offer small and medium-sized businesses ADSL2+ download speeds, mirroring the Business Pro package available from O2 stablemates Be.

O2 also have plans to upgrade of its HSDPA based mobile broadband network to increase the maximum download speed to 10.2Mbps, beating mobile rival Vodafone’s 7.2Mbps service available with the popular Vodafone Stick.

John Hutton will tomorrow announce his decision on what is to be done with regards to the 17.9 per cent ITV stake owned by Sky.

The Competition Commission earlier advised that Sky hold no more than 7.5 per cent of ITV, but the Business Secretary has the last word on the matter, though he is expected to follow the Commission’s recommendation.

ITV shares have now reached a new low, for which the controversy surrounding the Sky stake is partially to blame. This, ironically, will see Sky suffering a significant loss even if they are only forced to make a partial sale. Last Friday, ITV shares were valued at 72.9p, compared with the 135p a share that Sky paid at the time of purchase.

Since the launch of Virgin Media last year, the gestation of which prompted the Sky ITV share spree, we have seen the cable group greatly stimulate growth and competition in the market place. The launch of Virgin’s 20Mbps services paved the way for ADSL2+ from the likes of Be, O2 and UK Online to do the same.

Virgin’s arrival in the market also saw providers adding increased value services, such as digital TV and mobile phones – BT and Tiscali both pushed to drive customers to their IPTV platforms in 2007 and Sky had a wildly successfully year with See Speak Surf.

All this talk about cable has also stimulated debate about the future of telecoms networks in Britain – BT, along with Virgin, have been trialling next-gen cable services in the south of England, and so-called Dark Fibre pioneers H20 Networks are keen on leading the way by routing 21st Century cable networks through 19th Century sewer ducts.

Good things really do come to those who wait. O2’s broadband service is the best in the UK, according to recent poll conducted by Thinkbroadband.com. The mobile network provider and ISP scored 74 per cent for speed, 72 per cent for reliability and, crucially, 79 per cent for customer service.

It seems that O2’s wait and see approach paid off. Whilst watching competitors trip over themselves to buy up the next ISP they could afford, O2 waited for the cream to rise to the top and made a bid. O2 bought Be Broadband last summer for a cool £50 million, but did not immediately rebrand the network, instead allowing it to grow first before launching its own services on the Be infrastructure.

Sebastien Lahtinen, co-founder of Thinkbroadband.com, said: “O2 has entered a very competitive market with highly compelling services and our users have clearly indicated that they currently perform very well in all three categories against the large established operators.”

2007 has also seen much consolidation in the Broadband marketplace, with mergers and acquisitions seeing old players shake hands and donning new team colours.

At this stage in the financial year, there’s still everything to play for up until April 2008, with takeovers from Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse hopefully giving former stragglers Pipex and AOL a shot in the arm, and with Sky connecting customers at a phenomenal rate since the launch of their successful See Speak Surf squad formation. Up and coming ISP Be Broadband, has also been a keen player, thanks to partners O2, who have just launched their own broadband service using the Be network.

We’ve taken a quick look at the total take-up of the big six so far, and had a look a some of the more prominent ‘tier 2′ ISPs available.

UK Broadband Premiership – Q3 Figures 07/08 Season

BT Group (BT Broadband/PlusNet/Brightview) - 4.1 million

Virgin Media (including Virgin Media Cable and ADSL) - 3.3 million

Carphone Warehouse (TalkTalk/AOL UK) - 2.5 million

Tiscali (Tiscali Broadband/Pipex) - 2 million

Orange (Orange Broadband) - 1.6 million

Sky (Sky Broadband/UK Online) - 1 million

UK Broadband Division 1

O2 Telefónica - have launched O2 Broadband, using the Be Broadband ADSL2+ network. O2 Broadband comes at a discounted price to O2 Pay Monthly mobile customers who pay more than £30 a month.

NamesCo – one of the veterans of the ISP league, NamesCo may not hold as big a market share as the big hitters, but specialise more in hosting, and provision of webspace. NamesCo have generous packages for businesses and residential customers alike.

Eclipse Internet – with word of mouth spreading, Eclipse are slowly winning over customers with a solid broadband service that doesn’t rely on flashy bundle deals or expensive ad campaigns. Eclipse is owned and ran by KCOM, who handle all telecommunications within Hull and around the Kingston area.

Demon Internet – Like NamesCo, Demon have been doing the rounds since the early days of dial-up and are an established and trusted brand. Demon also specialise in hosting, providing webspace, unlimited emails, and static IP addresses with their home and business packages.

BT has outstripped rivals Virgin Media, Carphone Warehouse and Sky in the race to grab British broadband customers over the last three months, attracting almost twice as many new customers as its third-placed rival TalkTalk, and once again reinforcing its position in the marketplace.

In the three months to the end of September, BT added 178,000 new broadband customers taking its base well over 4 million, while TalkTalk added just 89,000 – raising its total to 2.5 million – whilst Sky were busy trumpeting the connection of their millionth customer toward the end of October.

Word on the street is that Carphone Warehouse have reached breaking point in terms of the number of customers they can connect on their own unbundled lines, and with customers less likely to fork out for the additional charges that come with non-LLU connections, it looks as though further LLU purchases will be required if Charles Dunstone’s group want to maintain their position.

Carphone Warehouse have spent a significant amount of money on expanding into the US market via a deal secured with retail chain Best Buy – if the investment pays off, it could see CW becoming a major player in world markets.

Today also marks the launch of Apple’s iPhone in the UK – Carphone Warehouse have the rights to sell the highly desirable smartphone in the high street and online, so after Christmas, will have some extra pennies to spend. Mr. Dunstone subtly hinted at expected profits from iPhone sales in the following statement: “We expect a good second half in the retail business, with new product launches and the rising interest in mobile data services driving consumer demand.” Carphone Warehouse has reportedly upped its interim dividend payout by 25%.

Of course, if the iPhone performs well, then this also means that O2’s coffers will be fresh with customer pennies, meaning that there will be plenty of scope for extending the Be Broadband network, making the very attractive combination of discounted ADSL2+ O2 Broadband along with an iPhone contract available to more than the 50% of the population currently covered.

If the iPhone does for the smartphone world what the iPod did for portable music players, then the market could see a sharp rise in the take-up of O2 Broadband, which could potentially shake up the dominance of the Broadband G6.

Virgin Media are reportedly testing out the feasibility of launching broadband speeds of up to 50Mbps over their existing fibre optic networks. Virgin admitting that they are unable to compete with Sky on the TV front have instead turned their attentions to the strongest suit in their hand – the superiority of fibre over copper lines.

Acting chief executive Neil Berkett, the chap who is ‘most likely to’ take over the chair vacated by Steve Burch, said in a statement that “Despite our technical advantage we are still not really standing out from the crowd,” and that the way forwards would be to “re-focus our energies onto the broadband platform.”

Virgin have in the past muttered about the possibility of 50Mbps speeds after the initial upgrade of the Size: XL speeds from 10Mbps and 20Mbps was announced way back in March, but now it seems more of a possibility.

With BT continuing to set up the obsolete-out-of-the-box 21CN ADSL2+ network nationwide, which everyone, including Sky, relies on for their internet services, making the move to unroll a service over twice the speed of the competition should reinvigorate customer interest in Virgin Media broadband.

Virgin have also recently been making some minor technical upgrades to their existing networks, which has caused services to drop in some areas - we’ve had a few emails from Virgin customers saying that over the last couple of weeks service has been decidedly patchy – chances are it could have something to do with this speed boost, then again it could just be routine maintenance.

We reckon that customers living in cabled areas would flock to 50Mbps speeds, after customers on Be and UK Online extolling the virtues of 20Mbps+ connections. Whether the smaller Size: M and Size: L packages will see a speed boost remains to be seen; it didn’t happen last time, and theoretically, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t.