* Customer base stabilises after cyber attack
* Full-year earnings up 6 pct, in line
* Says happy with MVNO mobile strategy
* Could trial fibre using BT's poles and ducts
By Paul Sandle
LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - British broadband operatorTalkTalk said it had bounced back from a customer datatheft in October, stabilising its customer base in the finalquarter after 95,000 subscribers left following the breach.
The company, which positions itself as a low-cost optionagainst BT, Sky and Virgin Media, saidits customer base remained flat in the three months to the endof March.
It also reported its lowest-ever churn, the percentage ofits customer base that had switched, of 1.3 percent.
"The business bounced back strongly in the final quarterfollowing the cyber attack," Chief Executive Dido Harding said,adding that full-year core earnings had risen 6.1 percent to 260million pounds ($376 million), in line with its guidance.
Yet the cost of the attack, when the personal details of157,000 customers were stolen from its database via its website,was clear in its statutory pretax profit.
It more than halved to 14 million pounds after exceptionalitems of 83 million pounds.
The fastest growing part of TalkTalk's business is mobile,provided through renting capacity from a network operator.
It will change provider to O2 from Vodafone this year, and could have benefited from the larger combinednetwork of O2 and Three if Brussels had not blocked a mergerbetween the operators on Wednesday.
Harding said the failure of the deal was a positive forTalkTalk.
"I have an MVNO (mobile virtual network operator) partnerwhich is more focused on its existing customers rather than onintegrating with another company," she said.
O2 owner Telefonica has said it will examine options for theBritish operator, a move that could throw up an opportunity forTalkTalk to participate in a deal.
"Of course we'll look at everything that is happening, butwe are very happy with our strategy as its stands," Hardingsaid.
She said the company would also consider a trial of its ownfibre network using BT's poles and ducts infrastructure,something regulator Ofcom is keen to encourage.
She added, however, that a separate infrastructure businesswould need to be set up to fund the network, with TalkTalkbringing the customers.
"Realistically we are talking about a 5 billion poundinvestment over a decade. Our contribution to that would beacquiring customers and putting them on that network as opposedto putting that sort of debt on our balance sheet," she said.
Shares in TalkTalk were up 1.03 percent at 274 pence at 1115GMT.
($1 = 0.6923 pounds) (Reporting by Paul Sandle; Editing by Toby Davis)
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