UK telco BT said on Wednesday that its retail unit had notched up more than 1 million subscribers to its VoIP services. BT Broadband Talk and BT Softphone, now represent more than a third of BT’s consumer broadband base.

BT said it has reached this milestone more than six months earlier than projected, having set a target of achieving a million VoIP customers within twelve months in July last year.

BT Broadband Talk enables customers to use their broadband connections as an extra line with a VoIP-enabled phone, while BT Softphone is a downloadable PC-to-PC VoIP chat application.

A BT spokesman said that while BT VoIP service subscribers are not required to be signed up to BT Broadband, “a majority are on BT Broadband”. He would not reveal how many users were rival broadband subscribers.

The BT spokesman said that the recent success of VoIP was largely due to developments in technology allowing users to make calls on phones rather than using software clients on the PC. “Around 60 per cent of our new subscribers take the higher value deals which include the BT wireless hub and handset,” he said.