The London Daily News

Carphone Warehouse is set to become the UK's largest internet provider after buying the UK division of Tiscali.

The phone seller, which already has its own Internet Service Provider in Talk Talk,  reportedly bought the Italian ISP Tiscali UK for £236 million - but does not take on any of the business's debts.

The final deal that was done makes Carphone Warehouse the biggest provider of broadband in the UK, overtaking Virgin Media.

Company struggling

Tiscali in Italy are expected to use much of the money it makes from the sale to help pay off a chunk of its debts, in order to restructure the rest.

Struggling Tiscali has been up for sale since last year, with various suitors tipped along the way.

Online piracy

Carphone Warehouse chief Charles Dunstone has been one of the most vocal ISP men in opposing efforts by the music business to make the net companies play a more proactive role in combating online piracy.

Both Tiscali and Carphone Warehouse were signatories of the British Phonographic Society memorandum of understanding - in which the web firms agreed to try and work with the content owners to find a mutually-acceptable solution to the piracy issue - so the takeover shouldn't make a big difference to ongoing talks between the two sectors.

Not that those talks have achieved much yet anyway.

Additional reporting by CMU Network

Carphone Warehouse