BT tops 15 million broadband users

Broadband

BT is celebrating reaching a massive milestone this month as it has signed up its 15 millionth broadband customer.

The telecoms giant began offering broadband services in August 2002 and has managed to go from an initial customer base of 200,000 to the 15 million mark in just eight years equating to 5,000 new connections a day.

Just under two thirds of that number came from business customers, whilst BT retail was responsible for the other five million sign ups.

Olivia Garfield, strategy director of BT, said: "People were sceptical when BT backed broadband in 2002 but the figures speak for themselves with the vast majority of new customers choosing broadband over BT's network rather than alternative ones where prices are far higher."

This is good news for BT, which has invested billions of pounds into extending and improving its broadband infrastructure across the UK.

However, it may need to work on how it shares the information with us, as last week the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) banned a BT broadband advert for being misleading about achievable speeds the second time one of its ads had been banned in a month.

Jennifer Scott

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.