BSkyB/Tiscali deal reportedly falls through

According to The Grauniad, talks between BSkyB and Tiscali over the latter's UK operations being bought by the former have hit a snag over the asking price. It seems Tiscali wanted £600m, but Sky was only willing to stump up £450m.

There seem to be two key problems with Tiscali, according to the piece. One is the fact that Tiscali UK is haemorrhaging customers, and the other is its nature as a patchwork of the networks it had itself bought up (a not dissimilar situation to that of Virgin Media). Hence, integrating the billing systems and the physical networks themselves would be a nightmare for any prospective buyer.

So, it seems one of the longest-running speculation mills in the telecoms market these days is back to square one. I've asked for comment from both Tiscali and Sky, but neither has stumped up, unsurprisingly.