Broadband Britain reaches historic milestone

Britain now has over 500,00 broadband connections according to telecoms regulator Oftel.

In a statement, Dave Edmonds, director general of Oftel, said: "The 500,000 doesn't take into account the cable operators' connections for March and April, so the actual figure is significantly more."

Edmonds claimed that the UK broadband market was more competitive at network and service levels than many European countries.

Ecommerce minister Douglas Alexander said: The UK now has some of the cheapest internet prices in the world- for bother narrowband and broadband. As a result , the number of people signing up to broadband is accelerating."

He added: "BT's commitment to broadband and their recent price reductions, together with the successful cable broadband programmes of NTL and Telewest pave the way for further advances on broadband during 2002."