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The pricing options will be available later this year to BT's IPStream customers, and will mean those ISPs can pay month-by-month, by network usage or based on capacity used.

With the former a ISP would pay lower access charges for each of its customers and would pay a varying usage charge, while the latter would mean the ISP pays slightly more for carrying

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the ISPs aggregated data on BT's network but would not take into account how many users that represented. Thus an ISP could offer entry-level low bandwidth ADSL services, making this a more economic option.

BT says it will be able to give some indication of pricing in the spring.

Bruce Stanford, BT Wholesale products director, said: 'Our customers have told us they are looking for the flexibility to differentiate their products and we are now taking our proposals to them so we can fine-tune the new options prior to launch.

'Over the coming months it is planned to offer our wholesale customers a choice of the existing BT IPStream pricing model and the two new options. They will be able to choose the option which fits their business model and develop a wider or more focussed product set which will give them the flexibility to innovate and help drive broadband take-up by offering tailored solutions for their customers.'