Weekly Brief – 14th August 2026

A summary of news pieces that may be of interest from the last week.

Octopus Investment reported in advanced talks to buy PXC from TalkTalk

Sky News reports that TalkTalk advisers are planning to enter advanced talks with Octopus about buying PlatformX Communications (PXC). Sky is linking this to Fern Trading, which is managed by Octopus. Fern also has assets including Vorboss, who are a business Internet solution provider, and also altnet AllPoints Fibre.

Separately, TalkTalk Business, which was spun off from TalkTalk in 2023, is to merge with managed service provider ARO.

Point Topic reports flat growth in UK market for Q2 2026

Total retail and wholesale broadband connections in the UK reached an estimated 29.37m at the end of Q2 2026, up only 1,000 connections on the last quarter, and showing the smallest increase in recent tracking, according to Point Topic supplier metrics. PT tracked full fibre connections at 13.99m at the end of the quarter, with a growth of 790k lines. BT Group’s consumer division was reported to be growing at only 1,000 connections also.

G.Network says it has stabilised quickly after administration

G.Network CEO says (in linkedin post) the company has had four strong months with ARPU up 30% for residential customers and 50% for business users. This is due to across-the-board price rises. The company reports 395k premises ready for service out of 420k that have been passed. The company has plans to introduce new 2.5 Gbps and 10 Gbps residential products in September.