News

Pipex Acquires Freedom to Surf

Broadband suppliers seem to be lining up in their haste to present their ‘big is beautiful’ story to strength their broadband offering to new and existing customers. The latest being Pipex who have announced their acquisition of Freedom to Surf plc, the Internet Service Provider, and Freedom to Surf Consumer Services Ltd, collectively known as "F2S".

F2S reported having just over 40,000 broadband customers at the end of September 2005, which, together with Pipex’s existing customer base, consolidates the Company’s position as the 5th largest broadband DSL provider in the UK.

Pipex say that incorporating the F2S business within the Pipex group will provide further opportunities for driving the expansion of broadband delivery, particularly in the area of Local Loop Unbundled (LLU) customers and the roll-out of ADSL2+. In addition, the acquisition will enable F2S’s customers to benefit from the enlarged network capabilities of the Group as well as the broader product offering.

Mike Read, CEO of Pipex says, "In the light of our recent decision to unbundle an initial 60 exchanges, we are very pleased to add F2S to the Pipex group, which will further increase the density of customers around each exchange, thus improving the return on capital and enabling us to offer higher speeds to a greater number of our customers. F2S’s customers will be able to benefit from our more extensive network and the broad range of services we provide."

ADSL2+ promises to offer 18Mbps downstream and 2Mbps upstream and will revolutionise rich media content delivery on the internet.