The Carphone Warehouse, the parent company of AOL broadband released its financial results for the half year ended on 29 September, 2007. The group of broadband & Voice companies that also own TalkTalk, has been strengthening its customer base in the UK which is reported to be 17 % of the UK broadband population. Currently, it has 2.15 broadband customers divided between AOL and TalkTalk, the subsidiaries which offer broadband & voice based services in the UK.

Out of the total customers, more than half of them (55 %) are now on the bundled lines of the Carphone Warehouse which is also the largest LLU provider in the UK. The progress in unbundling its lines has reached a new dimension with addition of 2,212 new exchanges to its existing LLU lines during the half year period. The addition of 215,000 broadband customers enabled the ISP to reach the figure (2.15 million) thanks to the contribution from AOL (with free laptop offer producing fruitful results) and the cost-effective call plans of TalkTalk (offering free broadband!).

As we have a look at TalkTalk call plans which also offer free broadband (with 40 GB download limit), their attractive features like competitive price (when compared with BT packages), two month free subscription to Setanta Sports and money back scheme seems to have helped TalkTalk not only to retain their customer base but also rise to one million within 18 months after TalkTalk introduced free broadband with their call plans.

As far as AOL is concerned, the recent innovations like wireless options and the special offer of free laptop worth 450 seemed to trigger the growth in their customer base which had seen some downfalls during the past.