Internet subscribers ditch mobile companies

published 31 July 2009

Orange is losing subscribers to its broadband service, it revealed in its second quarter results today, but it isn't the only phone company affected.

At the end of the fourth quarter in 2008 Orange had one million subscribers for internet, but at the end of the second quarter this year it had dropped to 954,000.

O2 is finding less people are subscribing to its broadband service as well. It currently has 456,882 subscribers, which is up by over 50,000 in the previous quarter. However, in the first quarter of this year, subscriptions rose by over 60,000, and, in the quarter before, by 70,000.

BT however kept the same amount of subscribers, a huge 4.8 million, and has predicted that this will rise to over 4.9 million in the third quarter of this year.

IT PRO contacted Orange whose only response to why its numbers had falled was its customer base "remains at broadly one million."

O2 had not replied to our request at the time of publication.

Jennifer Scott is a former freelance journalist and currently political reporter for Sky News. She has a varied writing history, having started her career at Dennis Publishing, working in various roles across its business technology titles, including ITPro. Jennifer has specialised in a number of areas over the years and has produced a wealth of content for ITPro, focusing largely on data storage, networking, cloud computing, and telecommunications.

Most recently Jennifer has turned her skills to the political sphere and broadcast journalism, where she has worked for the BBC as a political reporter, before moving to Sky News.