BT expects 10m ADSL subs this week

UK telco BT said it expects the UK to pass the 10 million ADSL subscriber milestone this week, boosted by an uptake in unbundled lines.

BT said that its wholesale division supplies services to more than 8.7 million customers, via service providers including BT Retail, whilst Openreach supplies more than 1.3 million lines to customers via local loop unbundlers.

Broadband availability is now more than 99.8 per cent, the company said.

According to figures from Analysis Consulting, with the inclusion of cable subscribers, more than 13 million people in the UK now have broadband. BT claims that three years ago, more than half of all new broadband connections were carried over cable but that percentage has declined to 11 per cent for the quarter ending September 2006.

BT Retail’s share of the total broadband market has remained at around 24 per cent at the end of September. BT Retail has more than 3 million broadband customers.