Broadband News

BT holds 30 per cent of the broadband market

Garnet Roach garnet@consumerchoices.co.uk

Remaining “Britain’s favourite broadband provider”, BT has topped 4.4 million retail broadband customers, representing 30 per cent of the market for the sixth consecutive quarter (16-05-08).

In its fourth quarter results to the 31 March 2008, released yesterday, BT (www.BT.com) put its success down to its increasing portfolio of additional services, such as Home IT Support, which now has 41,000 customers, up from 23,000 the previous year.

Its digital TV service BT Vision, which initially took off to a slow start has also picked up speed as the country has begun its digital switchover. 94,000 new customers were added in the quarter, bringing the total customer base to 214,000 with 68 per cent taking a subscription service at the point of sale.

The company’s report mentioned BT Wholesale’s new deal with O2 (www.O2.co.uk), who also released financial results this week after announcing the agreement that will expand O2’s broadband reach outside of its own local loop unbundled (LLU) network.

O2 also had a successful quarter, adding 60,711 new customers and taking its total to 131,420.

O2 broadband only launched in October last year but its discounted deals for O2 mobile customers will have undoubtedly added to the company’s speedy growth in a difficult consumer market.

It’s LLU network – which Be Broadband (www.BeThere.co.uk), owned by O2, also uses – now covers around 57 per cent of the UK but its new deal with BT will allow it nationwide coverage using the BT network where exchanges haven’t yet been unbundled.

Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “The UK broadband market has almost reached saturation point and it is through deals like discounts for existing customers – as in the case of O2 – or bundling with additional services such as digital TV, that ISPs can define themselves and continue to grow.

“But consumers should also keep an eye on smaller brands such as PlusNet (www.Plus.net) which although might not have the advertising clout of BT or O2, won the Best Consumer ISP award at this year’s ISPA awards,” he added.

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