Vodafone Eying a Return to Landline Telecoms

Media reports over the weekend suggest that Vodafone is preparing to drop its cellular-only policy and move into the landline market, offering triple play services. The UK based Telegraph newspaper, citing an unnamed Vodafone executive said that the company is eying up Internet Service Providers as its first pro-active move into landline service provision. Traditionally, when buying telecoms firms, Vodafone would fairly quickly sell off the landline subsidiaries it acquired.

The newspaper article said "The company, which is set to announce the conclusions of a far-reaching strategic review next month, is understood to have identified Tiscali's UK operation, which has 1m broadband customers, as one possible acquisition target. Any take-over would be in response to an expected move by Orange to offer "free" residential broadband to its mobile customers through Wanadoo, its sister company.

An executive with knowledge of Vodafone's plans said: "The company knows it will only be able to prosper by offering a suite of products. "

France Telecom has already announced plans to rebrand its ISP subsidiary, Wanadoo as Orange - enabling the mobile operator to start providing multiple services. Such a move would also enable Vodafone to offer VoIP services in the home, moving back into landline services."

Posted to the site on 24th April 2006