As British Telecom accelerated growth in broadband this week by announcing sweeping price cuts for its ADSL service BTOpenworld, cable operators reacted with details of the roll-out of their own, faster offerings.
The telecoms operator has slashed the price of monthly wholesale line rental for broadband connection from £25 to £14.75 from April 1.
BT chief executive Ben Verwaayen said: "Broadband is the future for Britain and we're putting it at the heart of BT's plans for growth in the UK mass market. This will drive the whole market forward by making broadband affordable, attractive and accessible."
It hopes the price cuts will boost demand and increase its broadband customer base from 145,000 to over one million by summer 2003. The cuts allow ISP's, such as Freeserve and AOL, to offer retail broadband services at competitive prices.
Cable groups welcomed the stimulus to the fledgling market.
Telewest group chief executive Adam Singer said: "It was getting hard building broadband Britain by ourselves and it's great that BT has finally turned up to lend a hand."
He said that Telewest is ahead of BT in connecting broadband subscribers and said it is planning the roll-out of a one megabit service later this year, which will be twice as fast as BT's ADSL offering.
NTL is expected to launch a similar service imminently.
Broadband subscribers for both NTL and Telewest services are understood to be nearing the 250,000 mark.
ISP Tiscali UK chief executive Sergio Cellini said: "This is the first step in driving serious consumer demand for broadband services."
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