Pipex has indulged in a little zoological shopping spree, snapping up Toucan and Bulldog for £24m and £12m respectively. The company says the acquisitions take its customer base to 1.14m, and its number of broadband subscribers to 570,000.

More importantly, they also mean the company has a so-called triple play offering, the combination of mobile, voice and broadband services widely seen as key to success in a rapidly shifting and much tougher market.

Pipex chairman Peter Dubens said the three services bundle would be offered to all its customers in the coming months.

Pipex is to pay IDT Telecom £4m in stock and £20m in cash for the Toucan business. Pipex gains 185,000 customers each with an average revenue of £23 per month.

Meanwhile, a wholly cash payment of £12m to Cable and Wireless brings Pipex the whole of Bulldog's residential and small business broadband customer base (approximately 100,000 people, with an average revenue of £34 per month) and rights to the Bulldog brand and domain names.

In related news, Pipex has also signed a deal with C&W to use the company's LLU (local loop unbundling) access to 800 exchanges. The company says this fits with its policy of using a mixture of its own unbundling and wholesale.

The terms of this agreement were not disclosed. ®