Post Office Completes Acquisition of Troubled UK ISP Fuel Broadband

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The Post Office’s telecoms division has today announced that they’ve completed the acquisition of Fuel Broadband from previous owner New Call Telecom. Apparently the “seamless” migration progress concluded yesterday and 60,000 customers have now been moved.

The first signs of trouble started to show themselves during the Spring after Fuel Broadband removed the ability for new customers to order their broadband and phone packages. Shortly after that existing subscribers began contacting ISPreview.co.uk (June 2017) to say that they’d been told the service was shutting down, which was later followed by a pledge to migrate their customer base to the Post Office.

Both providers base their networks off a wholesale solution provided by TalkTalk, which meant that the switch was quite straightforward. However we have received reports that a few customers suffered lengthy downtime during the move and many have been unhappy at having to sign-up to a new 18 month contract, which they claim often ended up costing more than they were paying before.

At the time New Call Telecom described the shock announcement as “exciting news” and they added that there was “plenty to look forward to“, which is a bit like Donald Trump (President of the USA) claiming to have had a “great day” at the office when exactly the opposite is true.

Meredith Sharples, Director of Telecoms at Post Office, told ISPreview.co.uk:

“We are delighted to welcome more than 60,000 new customers to the Post Office, where they can now benefit from our great service at a highly competitive prices. The acquisition demonstrates our commitment to further growth in the telecoms business.

With our unique insight and understanding of UK consumers, we have been able to build a strong and relevant telecoms offer; including high speed unlimited fibre products offering speeds of up to 76Mbps [FTTC] and voice only home phone all at great prices.

Using the trusted Post Office brand as a strong foundation, we look forward to fulfilling our growth strategy and seeing our telecoms business go from strength to strength in the years to come.”

Customers can now access a choice of packages from the Post Office, such as their unlimited ADSL broadband (up to 17Mbps), unlimited fibre / FTTC broadband (up to 38Mbps or 76Mbps) and voice only home phone services. In addition, the provider said that their telecoms division remains a “vital and growing part” of their business, which is being supported by further investment into their customer service teams in Preston, Lancashire and Selkirk, Scotland to “enhance” the customer experience.

NOTE: Prior to this migration the PO had about 460,000 telecoms customers, which we understand included around 180K broadband subscribers.