One.Tel hoovers up RedNet for £5m

B2B ISP snapped up

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Financial News, 22nd April 2005 14:28 GMT

Free whitepaper – Thermal design of Dell PowerEdge server

One.Tel - the telecoms arm of Centrica plc - has coughed up £5m in cash to acquire privately-owned B2B ISP RedNet Ltd.

The High Wycombe-based ISP - which provides networking and internet services to SMEs - has around a thousand small business customers and employs around 50 staff. All workers will be retained as One.Tel looks to build on its B2B operation.

Whilst One.Tel is known for its voice services, the acquisition of RedNet will enable it to offer business users services such as web hosting, Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and web security.

One.Tel boss Ian El-Mokadem said the deal "supports our efforts to attract additional business customers and ongoing efforts to cross sell new voice as well as data products and services to our current and newly acquired customers."

Last September Centrica forked out £43m to acquire another business outfit, Telco Holdings Ltd. Operating under the Telco Global brand, Enfield-based Telco Holdings helped increase the number of One.Tel's business punters to 120,000.®