BT extends broadband coverage, cuts prices

The company added that it is also cutting the rental prices for its family of consumer broadband products by up to 25% and comes on the back of a rising problem its faces with premium-rate internet dialler scams.

The telecom giant said its latest broadband drive will require 5,500 kilometres of new cable to be laid across the country, facilitating its ongoing plans to connect 99.6% of UK homes with broadband by August 2005, a project that has already seen a billion pounds invested into it, according to BT.

BT chief broadband officer, Alison Ritchie said: "Today's news provides clarity for more than a thousand communities across the UK. People have been keen to know when they will have access to broadband and this clarity from BT will allow them to plan ahead with confidence."

Ritchie said that the timetable would see broadband taken to all remaining exchanges barring the 'very smallest', about 100,000 UK premises.

Ritchie added: "BT is not forgetting these small numbers of communities who are still to be told when they will receive broadband. These communities are served by the very smallest exchanges and BT is working hard to find solutions for them. These solutions depend on the support of external partners and so BT will continue to seek to work in partnership with public sector and other organisations. Possible solutions include wireless and satellite broadband as well as BT's Exchange Activate product."

On the back of this, BT said that it was confident that over the summer it would find a way to extend the reach of broadband ADSL services to over a million more homes and businesses following promising results from its initial trials to extend its current limit of around 6km.

BT also said that from tomorrow, its BT Broadband (512k) service would be offered at £24.99, down from £27 per month with BT Yahoo! Broadband (512k) being reduced from £29.99 to £26.99. Its bigger offering, BT Yahoo! Broadband 1Mb will be available at £29.99 per month.

Its Broadband Basic (512k) service will remain at £19.99 per month, with free modem and connection, according to the company.

BT said that it will also introduce a 'fair usage allowance', enabling customers to surf the internet for 15 hours every day, as well as send and receive 250 JPEG pictures over e-mail every week while also being able download 250 music tracks and three hours of video clips on a weekly basis.