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This is the price that BT Wholesale charges Internet service providers (ISPs) for its BT IPStream services, which allow the ISPs to supply broadband Internet connections to the end user. Previously BT Wholesale charged £30 for the standard product and £25 for the recently introduced self-install package.

BT Wholesale's CEO Paul Reynolds said, 'We have now achieved the price that service providers told us they needed to get end user prices below £30.'

BT has also announced that it has made, and will continue to make, improvements in both network performance and service quality.

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The company intends to increase availability beyond the 1010 largely urban exchanges that are currently broadband-enabled. In areas where the expected level of demand does not indicate 'commercial viability', it intends to 'actively' search for partnerships that will extend broadband coverage to 'less commercially viable areas', similar to the Cornish scheme we reported last week.

The company will also aim to boost marketing of broadband and intends to establish joint projects with more than 40 ISPs to this effect.

BT expects the new price, which comes into effect on 1 April, to drive up the demand for broadband and it is targeting one million connections by the summer of 2003. Currently there are 145,000 BT Wholesale broadband end users (a figure which doesn't include subscribers to Telewest Blueyonder and NTL cable services).

BT's chief executive Ben Verwaayen declared that, 'Broadband is the future for Britain and we're putting it at the heart of BTs plans for growth in the UK mass market. This will drive the whole market forward by making broadband affordable, attractive and accessible.'