TALKTALK has signed a deal with O2 owner Telefonica in a move allowing the broadband firm to boost its bundled TV and phone services to customers.
The agreement means TalkTalk will offer combined TV, internet and fixed-line telephone and mobile services - called "quadplay" in the industry - to more of its 4.2 million customers.
Telefonica's UK arm will share its 2G, 3G and 4G network with TalkTalk, enabling the British firm to boost its mobile service.
The move comes after rival Vodafone said last week it plans to offer home broadband and television as part of quadplay services to customers from next spring. Quadplay tends to attract more data-hungry 4G subscribers.
TalkTalk said over the last two years it has grown its number of mobile customers to 350,000, or 9.5 per cent of its total customer base by the end of September.
Last month it also announced it would provide a free mobile SIM card along with its Plus TV service, which offers broadband, TV and a fixed-phone service.
Chief executive Dido Harding said the Telefonica deal was "a significant development" for TalkTalk in building on its success in mobile to date.
She added: "We are ideally placed to benefit from the market shift to quad-play, with a sizeable and growing number of customers already choosing to take mobile from us."
TalkTalk did not say when customers will be able to use its expanded network, but there are no plans for an announcement before the end of the year.
Last week TalkTalk said its pre-tax profits for the first half swung to £20 million from a £9m loss in the same period last year.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article