BT hits a million broadband homes

BT today announced its one millionth broadband customer, but announced it has no plans to rest on its laurels - with even more exchanges poised for high-speed web services.

According to BT the historic millionth customer is a charity working with disadvantaged children in Leeds.

The telecoms giant is patting itself on the back for hitting a target set early last year, when it had only 145,000 connections. And it announced that it was poised to bring another 69 exchanges into the broadband network.

This will raise its UK coverage to over 80 per cent of homes, up from the current 71 per cent.

Of the one million connected households, half use BT as their ISP, with other ISPs handling the rest of the ADSL customers.

Late last month, Oftel announced there were two million broadband connections in the UK. It estimated the split between ADSL and cable as being two to five in cable's favour. Of those using cable services, two thirds use NTL and the rest Telewest.