On the corner of Berwick Street today, in the old Tiscali HQ, TalkTalk opened their swanky  new office space. They’ve setup several floors of high-tech goodness.

The ground floor is a walk-in PC zone. Think Apple Store, but instead of iMacs they have rows of desktop PCs with large monitors running Windows 7. This floor is for the general public – to play around on the web (you can only access IE7 on the display PCs) and experience TalkTalk’s Internet. They might try and sell you broadband – but if you’re in Soho and want to quickly check something on the web, this might be an alternative stop to the Apple Store down the road.

On the first floor is a ‘Members Lounge’, up here there’s plenty of comfortable seating, desk space (with free wifi) and a flatscreen for BBC News. It’s pretty much like the lobby of a media company – it’s probably worth the £6.99 broadband costs just for access to this space. There’s plenty of room for hotdesking, with power supplies all along the rows of desks. There’s even a meeting room for members to book.

The next five floors are office space, with desk-space for rent. The desks themselves are in static rows of 4, so unless you’re renting 4 or 8, you’re going to end up with a randomer or two at the end of your table. The spaces are a decent size, there are a couple of meeting rooms per floor, which can be booked with the concierge. The kitchen facilities are standard, with a couple of couches for a coffee break.

In the package you get 24 hour security, meaning you have 24/7 access – something that’s quite important for most entrepreneurs. But most importantly, you get a 300mb wifi connection. The Internet line is actually 1gb up/down, but for now they’re capping it at 300mb for the tenants – which we still think is pretty impressive. Most offices on the ‘Silicon Roundabout’ are forced to put up with a dodgy 2mb line.

We still consider £450 per month, per desk a bit on the high side – industry standard tends to be ~ £350.

Although not exclusively for Tech startups – TalkTalk’s Soho Startup Spaces are going to be in direct competition with TechHub – a project setup by event organiser Elizabeth Varley and TechCrunch EU Editor Mike Butcher. TechHub is yet to launch formally, but will offer desk space at a monthly cost of £275+VAT (~£320) per desk, per month, which is arguably better value for the thriving startup.

We suspect TalkTalk and TechHub won’t be the only start-up friendly networking/incubator workspaces we’ll see launch in London over the next couple of years. We hope competition will keep prices low, and services growing. Interesting times ahead!