Carphone to unveil LLU plans in March

The Carphone Warehouse continues to press ahead with plans to invest £45m in broadband over the next three years as part of ambitious plans to unbundle the local loop (LLU) and provide telecoms services direct to end users.

The mobile phone retailer - which has expanded into telecoms services over recent years - plans to unveil further details about its broadband strategy in March. Its investment in LLU follows the addition of 1.3m more punters to is service following its acquisition in December of OneTel and the UK and Ireland businesses of Tele2.

With some 2.4m punters and one in ten of all the UK's residential lines, Carphone has set its sights on becoming the "number one alternative residential telecoms provider in the UK market".

Speaking today Carphone chief exec Charles Dunstone said: "The acquisitions of Onetel and Tele2's UK operations have cemented TalkTalk's position as the number one challenger in the UK residential telecoms market, and we have a substantial, profitable platform from which to launch our drive into broadband this year."

Publishing a trading update today for the 13 weeks to the end of December Carphone reported that total fixed line revenues rose 41 per cent to £140.5m.

It's TalkTalk UK telco service added a further 88,000 customers in the quarter, taking total number to 1.15m, with revenues up 60 per cent £51.3m.

The firm added that it expects full year results to be "at the top end of current market expectations". ®