Topic: Pipex

Pipex Communications which is one of the UK's oldest ISPs and bought by Tiscali last year has decided on a name change and have gone for the less than catchy name of GX Networks Ltd.

Communications, such as emails and bank charges from Pipex will now show as GX Networks, but according to an email sent to customers it will be "business as usual" although Tiscali have made no secret of wanting to shift it's broadband business, so it could be that ex-Pipex customers will get another owner.

Pipex is rumoured to reveal who it has chosen as the preferred bidder for the sale of it's web-hosting and business telecom divisions.

Although there are not many details as yet, it's thought that it has three potential groups ready to do a deal with, two of these are thought to be Oakley Capital, the private equity group set up by Pipex founder Peter Dubens, and telecoms company Thus Group.

Pipex is continuing to sell itself off with rumours of the sale of it's hosting and business service division.

The ISP sold it's broadband and voice business to Tiscali in September netting £210m in the process, the sale of the other services is predicted to gain it another £130m and that proceeds would be returned to shareholders.

Pipex has announced new broadband packages today and are scrapping the old 'unlimited' tag in favour of clear and transparent download limits.

The ISP is looking to be “honest and straight forward to customers� by giving customers fixed download limits rather than applying a Fair Usage Policy, which to most users is a grey area as these limits are not usually published.

As before the packages come in Mini, Midi, Max and Pro and have the same up to 8Mbps download speeds, with download limits at 2GB, 10GB, 30GB and  100GB respectively. Prices range from £9.99 a month for the mini, which Pipex claim is suitable for 70 per cent of its customers to £39.99 for the Pro. Mini and Midi customers receive a free modem but can upgrade to the wireless router that Max and Pro customers get for an additional £30. All packages can be topped up with extra download allowance for £3 per extra 3GB.

An interesting point is that these packages come with a 30 money-back guarantee which allows customers to cancel without any charges if they are unhappy with the service.

The sale of Pipex to rival ISP Tiscali has finally gone though after the OK from industry regulator Ofcom.

Tiscali will now officially take over the broadband and voice divisions of Pipex Communications, though it has not bought 123-reg, the domain registar or web-hosting service WebFusion, which were part of the Pipex group.

Pipex itself was no stranger to buying other ISP's with it purchasing Bulldog Internet and Freedom2Surf in the past, but now it's become part of the Italian Giant. Tiscali's customer base is just under two million, which makes it the fourth largest ISP, although it still has only half the customers for the industry leader BTmarket who have over four million UK  customers.

Share holders of Pipex have voted in favour of an offer for it's broadband customers by Tiscali at their Extraordinary General Meeting (EGM) on Friday.

The deal will cost Tiscali £210 million and although they have voluntarily alerted the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) there is no reason to expect the deal not going through.

Plans are to move Pipex customers to Tiscali LLU connections as soon as possible, but it's not know if the Pipex badge will be retained or the whole operation will be merged under the Tiscali name.

Pipex to announce that it has sold itself to Italian giant Tiscali in a £210 deal, but it's not all good news for some.

Originally the company had hoped to sell itself as a complete unit, but this no longer seems possible, so it has decided to offload it's broadband and voice customers to it's rival. What will happen to customers on it's hosting services or the rest of the business has not been revealed so far.

Pipex has nearly 600,000 broadband customers after itself acquiring many smaller ISPs in the shape of Bulldog, Freedom2surf, Nildram and Toucan over the years.

Pipex are giving customers the chance of six months free broadband if you sign to their pipexmini + anytime service until 17th June.

The bundle includes a free modem, anti-virus and an 8Mbps connection, but only includes 2GB on usage each month with any extra usage being charged at £2.70 per extra 3GB which may push the price up unless you are a light user.
The package also includes free local and national phone calls with discounts of 25% for mobile at 98% on international calls.

Pipex has released it's financial results for the last year which show that profits have fallen due to borrowing to pay for rival ISPs Bulldog, Toucan Homecall during the year.

Pre-tax profits were down to £4.8m, from £5.1m a year earlier, and margins went the same way from 46 percent to 38.2 percent last year. The number of connected broadband customers rose from 283,000 to 570,000 due to the acquisitions.

At the same time it took a swipe at the media who have been reporting the ISPs attempts to find a new owner, allegedly attracting the attention of Virgin Media, BT and the Carphone Warehouse.

The statement is likely to do little to end speculation, while it seems potential buyers are cooling off, the lure of over half a million customers could still make it an interesting target for buyers.

Pipex who is currently looking for a new owner may find itself without anyone to buy the company after another potential bidder has pulled out.

The £450m action for the company had, at one stage, seen the UKs heavyweights battle to put in a bid, but the quest maybe over as only one potential bidder remains. So far BSkyB and Virgin media have quit the action, and now another potential suitor, BT, have decided to do the same leaving only The Carphone Warehouse in the frame.

The interest maybe short-lived as The Carphone Warehouse sees the asking price as over inflated, and when compared with it's purchase of AOL it does seem this way. Last year bought AOLs 1.5m broadband customers for £370m, which seems a bargain when compared to Pipex's 600,000 customers which may cost it closer to half a million.

It was a while back that there were rumours that Pipex was up for sale, but now it looks like going ahead.

The company have hired investment bank UBS to carry out a sale of the company according to reports in the Sunday Express. It claimed chairman Peter Dubens was looking for an offer of between 16 pence and 22 pence per share, which closed at 14 pence on Friday to value to company at £336m.

Rumours are that Pipex are up for sale, although the company deny this is the case.

According to a report in today's Times newspaper, Pipex, which is the fifth largest ISP in the UK, is likely to be bought out. Names being touted as potential buyers are BT, Sky and the Carphone Warehouse, the latter two maybe after Pipex's experience after their troubled entry into the broadband market.

Pipex has 560,000 broadband customers in the UK and is thought to be worth around £400 million.

The article names BT, Sky and the Carphone Warehouse as potential buyers for the business, which is reckoned to be worth about £400m. Pipex has some  and could become a kingmaker in the battle for dominance of the DSL market.

Pipex itself is not strange to the idea of taking over ISPs as they have acquired Freedom2Surf, Bulldog, Toucan and Nildram over the years.

You would think that the time MaxDSL has been around that everyone (who wanted it) would have been on it by now, but not if your ISP is PlusNet.

Now if you want a fast track to the wonders of 'up to 8Mbps' (are we allow to say that?) then you have a problem as the ISP has a 11 week backlog of users wishing to move. Help is now at hand, if you are prepared to dig into your pockets, as PlusNet can speed up things to a measly 3 days if you are prepared to stump up a fiver for the privilege.

So like most things in life, you pay your money or wait!

It seems like Pipex has money to burn today, after snapping up Bulldogs customers for £12m it's splashed out a further £24 for Toucan.

The deal is to pay  IDT Telecom £4m in stock and £20m in cash for the ISP and will gain Pipex an extra 185,000 customers, taking the ever growing total to 1.14m with the number of broadband subscribers to 570,000.

It seems 'The Hoff' is pulling the cash in.

Remember that Cable & Wireless were looking to sell Buldog customers after it's purchase of the ISP?

Well it seems that Pipex have decided to stump up £12m for the customer base of 110,000, the website and also the use of the Bulldog brand and domain names. Quite why it would want the Bulldog name as within the telco industry it is not the most trusted of brands, it has been exposed by the BBC programme watchdog as well as being in trouble with industry regulator Ofcom.

The latest acquisition will take  the Pipex customers to 1,140,000.

Milton Keynes will become the first UK town to boast a high-speed WiMax wireless broadband network, with other cities to follow.

Pipex and Intel are to develop the Airspan WiMAX network following successful trials. The tests saw speeds in excess of 2Mbps up and down achieved indoors at a range of 1.2km from the base station with no direct line of sight. Speeds of 10Mbps down and 9Mbps up have been achieved to external antennas at the test house at 1.2km from the base station. Longer range tests with external antennas have achieved 6Mbps down and 4Mbps up at a range of 6km from the base station.

Pipex has said it plans to create WiMax networks in eight UK cities by 2008, including networks in London and Manchester.
Plans of the launch date in Milton Keynes is rumoured to be announced in the next four weeks.

Just imagine, you are happily reading your emails, then you notice one which tells you it's time to be cut off!!
That's the gist of the mail which dropped into some worried Pipex users inboxes...

Ah it's spam......nope it came from a kosher Pipex mail address.....time to start panicking!

But worry not, it seems Pipex have been sending out the emails in error and you are still safe to surf, panic over.

Pipex is planning is to offer 8Mbps broadband for just £6.50 when customers take its £12.50 per month package for unlimited voice calls.

Whether this deal is for exchanges Pipex has unbundled, or will apply across all exchanges hasn't been released, but more news should be available as they plan a £3m advertising campain, with David Hasselhoff as it's front man.

The subsidising of broadband with packaged phone deals seem to be the way that the industry is moving with recent similar deals mobile companies such as Orange and O2, and broadcasters, including BSkyB. The Pipex deal is £2 per month cheaper than that offered by Carphone Warehouse.

The problem is that these deals will cost the company in the initial stages,  city analysts believe BSkyB's broadband will cost the company £100m in the first year, and this is underlined by Rupert Murdock telling shareholders that the launch will have a "significant" impact on profits.

Pipex is to start moving some of it's nearly 400,000 broadband customers onto Local Loop Unbundles (LLU) exchanges to take advantage of it's investment announced last year.

The news was revealed asfter the ISP announced it's results for the year to December which showed that the ISP is in a very healthy state, with turnover rising 30% and it's profits rising from £6.2m to £7.2m.

The Council of Milton Keynes look set to sign a 5 year contract with fixed and wireless broadband supplier Pipex for its own use - however, the contract will also see Pipex invest into unbundling the exchanges in and around the area - resulting in upto 24Mbps services being available across the majority if not the whole of the Milton Keynes area.

The news will be very welcome by those calling for faster services (and in some cases - a broadband service at the very least) such as the The Milton Keynes Broadband Action Group. Milton Keynes's telephone network, by the Council's own admission has a number of "shortcomings" - including low quality copper cables, long distances to exchanges and of course, TPON - Milton Keynes's infamous problem.

A second document from the Council outlines some interesting stats yeilded from a survey of residents of Milton Keynes, for example what users are prepared to pay for faster broadband services, eg that most were prepared to pay £25 per month for a 2Mbps service.

The meeting documents are available on the Milton Keynes County Council website here (Part 1) and here (Part 2)

ISP Pipex is offering new subscribers an early Christmas present, two months free broadband, a free modem and free set-up.

The offer is available until 23 December and will give users a 2Mbps broadband connection for £14.99 a month, with an option of 500 minutes of home phone calls and 12 months anti-virus and firewall protection and even a free gift!. Those with existing broadband connections can migrate to Pipex and will will be given with a free modem or an extra month of broadband free.

To ensure  you will be surfing at Christmas Pipex recommend signing before 10 December.  Details on the Pipex site.

It seems that Be have started something of a roller coaster as of late with Pipex being the latest ISP announcing their intention to start 24Mbps broadband from early next year.

In all 60 exchanges (yet to be revealed) have been selected for the service having met the criteria of having at least 400 Pipex customers, and within 5km of the exchange.

No pricing from the ISP is currently available.

Pipex have announced a set of deals for the summer for those users who sign during August.

Those  who decide to go for the Lite 2000 package will pay £9.99 a month for the first two months, with the price returning to £23.44 thereafter. A free modem and activation is thrown in, but users who leave within the first twelve months will have to refund the standard activation fee of £58.75. If you migrate from another ISP and don't require and equipment then Pipex say that the second month will be free,

The Lite 2000 is capped at 5GB per month of transfer, exceeding this will reduce the connection speed to a 48/32Kbps connection, although most will probably decide to buy more allowance at £2.50 per GB.
If you are not happy with a capped product then the Solo 1000 can be ordered for £14.99 a month for the first three months before returning to £23.44.

Full details at Pipex.

Pipex has deemed itself a large enough ISP to now venture into Local Loop Unbundling, enjoyed by other ISPs such as Bulldog and UKOnline. Currently the ISP has targeted 60 exchanges which are making the LLU route attractive and commercially viable.

ISPs moving an LLU base has in the past, resulted in significantly cheaper deals for consumers looking for that best "Mb for buck" deal, not to mention, the freedom for ISPs to regulate the speeds on the line (although within technological limitations of course), as LLU ISPs are responsible for more of the network between the customer and the Internet than those who simply resell BTWholesale services.

However, this has come at a price. In both the example LLU ISPs we cited earlier in this article, both have received a large amount of criticism from the public in terms of the quality of service offered and the speed of rollout to other consumers.

Pipex has announced that it is going to introduce traffic management on it's Solo range of broadband connections.

Starting from today (4th July) changes in the T & C and AUP's will allow them to apply restrictions on either the speed or priority of users data. One form of data mentioned in the FAQ is that of P2P traffic which can be ''throttled' or in extreme cases be prevented from certain times of the day. This could be true at 'peak times' which Pipex say could run from 6pm to midnight seven days of the week.

This kind of traffic shaping, throttling or whatever you like to call it is nothing new, many ISP's have used this in the past to cope a lack of network capacity although Pipex haven't mentioned that it will be a temporary arrangement but have said that it has the right to review the policy at a later date.

Pipex have also stated that 99% of it's users will not notice any difference in their connections, although many users will be concerned that a so called 'unlimited' package really isn't that at all.

The FAQ can be found here.

Pipex has today become the next broadband provider to jump onto the voice bandwagon, with its announcement of Pipex Talk.

Expected to taking pre-registration details from 20th June (although the site is available now), with the service fully launching later in July, Pipex Talk will cost £4.99 per month in addition to the monthly broadband subscription. Bundled minutes will amount to a impressive sounding 3,000 minutes covering both local and national numbers (ie, those starting 01 & 02).

Pipex has already enjoyed success with its VOIP for Business, but Pipex Talk, will see its voice services rolled out to all of its 200,000+ broadband subscribers.

It seems ISP's are entering into the football market, first PlusNet, and now Pipex have signed a deal reportedly worth to sponsor Fulham for the next two years.

This will put the ISP's logo on the team's home and away shirts from the beginning of the 2005/06 season. Its name will also be emblazoned across the roof of the stadium, which is conveniently positioned right under the Heathrow flight path.
As well as commercial opportunities such as perimeter advertising boards and corporate hospitality, the tie-up will make Pipex the club's exclusive broadband services partner.

Pipex has released it's revamped product range, including a 2Mbps connection for only £14.99 for the first three months.

It's new flexible range, PIPEX Lite, allows customers to connect at 2Mbps and select a monthly usage allocation of  2, 5 or 15 GB costing £19.99, £23.44 or £27.99 respectively. If users require more data transfer during the month then extra usage allocation blocks of 1 GB can chosen for £2.50. One interesting touch is that unused data can be carried over to the next month, much like contract mobile phones.

For heavier users it's PIPEX Solo range has been revamped, the 512Kbps connection has been dropped, but speeds of 256Kbps (Solo 250), 1Mbps (Solo 1000) and 2Mbps (Solo 2000),are available, priced at £14.99, £23.44 and £33.99 respectively.
All of the Solo range has "no usage limits, no caps and no lock-ins." to quote the press release.

A free modem is also included in both packages.

 If you order a new ADSL line, not a migration, to PIPEX Solo 1000 or 2000 between 23rd February to 31st March 2005, then Pipex will give you one and up to three others a week's free accommodation to Egypt, Hungary, Kenya, Malta, Mexico, South Africa and parts of the USA with many other destinations on offer.

Full details can be found on the Pipex website.

ISPs are always coming up with new incentives to tempt new subscribers, so it comes as no surprise to see Pipex continue the trend with home broadband subscribers migrating their service to Pipex having the choice of either a free ADSL modem and a month's free subscription, or for those already equipped (one would have thought, being the majority), 2 months free service.

Pipex offer a range of packages for the home user both under their 'Solo' brand, ranging from 150Kbps service at £15.99 through to £27.99 for the ISPs 1Mbps service. In all cases, there's no setup charge, and just a one month contract to fulfil, which makes the 2 months free access available, a pretty good deal!

A full list of Pipex's consumer packages can be found here.

Business users are not left out in the cold, with Pipex offering a similar incentive, with 1 months free service, although the minimum term does vary from 1 to 3 months. Pipex's Business suite of access solutions can be found here.

After BT's recent announcement regarding a 2Mbit trial starting at the end of this month, Pipex have today annouced their involvement in the trial.

Pricing for this is very competitive at £39.99. This is even more suprising when you consider that Pipex currently use BT Wholesale's standard pricing which costs £38 ex VAT per user. Retail prices are generally £10 more than Wholesale prices so either Pipex are happy losing money in the short term, or a switch to BT Wholesales capacity based charging (CBC) is on the cards. More info can be found here.

A major connectivity and service outage has affected popular ISP, Pipex today.

Reports seemed to first surface in the small hours of Sunday morning, with problems of connectivity and lack of service from email and news servers. Blame was initially put on a spam attack. From user reports both ADSL and dialup accounts are suffering from the outage, with those users resorting to another ISPs dialup solution for their connectivity.

The latest update from the Pipex Network Status page confirms the outage, although we see some users reporting connectivity is at least now possible, but flakey at best.

Today sees an overhaul of the offerings from popular ISP Pipex, on their Xtreme Solutions range, providing products ranging from 150Kbps (£15.99 per month) right through to 1Mbps (costing £33.99 per month).

All the products from Pipex include both free setup and a free hardware package consisting of either a Alcatel 330 ADSL modem and 2 microfilters, or alternatively a pack of 3 microfilters if you already have your own preferred ADSL equipment, eg a router.

A more detail chart of the available products can be found on the Pipex website

By now pretty much all of Pipex and Nildram's 1mb customers are aware of the BT investigation into exchange congestion.

Whilst theoretically limited to small number of subscribers, a meeting today have seen BT release details of 50 exchanges shown to have the congestion issue.

First prize however, goes to Pipex - for putting up a beta system where customers of the ISP can check if their exchange is on the list.

The system can be found here.

More details to follow ...........

It seems that the rumours were true!!

GX Networks is purchasing the ISP's entire issued sharesl from managing director David Rickards, who with his family had previously owned 100 per cent of the company's shares.

Rickards who will join the new board in executive capacity said:-

"We needed an alliance with a larger organisation to take our business to the next stage. GX, with its highly resilient network presence and a culture similar to ours, is the right choice for Pipex. I am delighted that I will be filling a senior executive role in the combined organisation going forward, and that the Pipex brand name is to be maintained."

Pipex holds about 6% of the UK ADSL market with 119,000 customers.

A small reference today appears on the online edition of Guardian Unlimited quoting that GX Networks are rumoured to be about to purchase UK ISP, Pipex. The price of the purchase is said to be £60million.