After acquiring Tiscali in a takeover last summer, TalkTalk has been planning to discontinue the brand name and migrate all current customers over to a TalkTalk price plan. As a result, TalkTalk has now stopped Tiscali from taking on any new customers and the switchover process is about to get underway.

The merger of the two firms has resulted in the creation of the UK’s largest single home broadband provider, which will now serve over 4.1 million customers around the country. TalkTalk’s parent firm The Carphone Warehouse bought Tiscali for a modest £235 million in May 2009 and it joined a group of other subsidiaries that included fellow broadband provider AOL.

The Carphone Warehouse’s CEO Charles Dunstone said in a statement that he hoped the change-over would be more significant for former Tiscali customers than an alteration to the logo. As such, he has assured the new members of the TalkTalk home broadband family that their tariffs are of equal value to those of existing Tiscali plans.

Mr Dunstone also indicated that the change meant that many former Tiscali customers would now be paying less monthly for their broadband service. A minority may pay more, but cheap cable broadband could be a solution.

Some people will welcome the news, as the TalkTalk broadband brand has undergone quite a metamorphosis over the past few years. At first it was not particularly well regarded, but with a turnaround in customer service quality and a competitive pricing strategy it has now become a trusted brand.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard added that “if ex-Tiscali customers are not keen on staying with TalkTalk after the switchover is complete, they can always migrate their service to an alternative provider with ease. Cheap cable broadband offers an excellent alternative to ADSL for those living in cabled areas and rival ADSL providers will be looking to snap up any customers that may not be enamoured with TalkTalk.”

According to the pre-Budget report released this week by Alistair Darling, the 50p broadband tax levied against all UK customers with a landline connection will help to provide better broadband deals for everyone in the future.

There has been some controversy surrounding the tax, which will be applied to every individual line rather than just to homes and could cost some significantly more than others. However, most experts are in favour of the tax as it will ensure that fibre optic broadband is available to millions more UK residents over the coming years.

Money saving expert Julie Owens commented that although the telecoms companies were working to extend the reach of fibre optic home broadband, governmental backing was needed in order to make sure the new technology reached as many people as possible.

The so-called digital divide which separates certain rural areas of the UK from their urban-dwelling counterparts in terms of broadband speeds and availability should hopefully be closed as part of the new efforts.

The tax is also expected to extend the broadband market place, allowing for many more providers to compete for the custom of those seeking high-speed connections. This will lead in a fall in Tiscali broadband prices as providers who offer older ADSL connections are met with competition from low-cost, high-speed fibre optic services.

Not all providers are entirely enamoured by the planned broadband tax. TalkTalk recently expressed its concerns that the poorest families may find the tax too heavy, causing them to cancel their current broadband service.

There is no doubt that Tiscali broadband prices and indeed the cost of broadband in general, are set to fall lower than ever with help from the broadband tax. It is clearly a price that many are more than willing to pay.