BT to cut broadband start-up prices

The telco is expected to announce special offers on selected wholesale broadband prices on Monday. These are intended to drive ADSL take-up in early 2004.

However, customers will only benefit if the Internet service providers who resell these products decide to pass the savings on, rather than use them to bolster their profit margins.

As part of the special offer, the cost of upgrading from a 512Kbps ADSL connection to 1Mbps will drop by £10, from £35 to £25. ISPs contacted by ZDNet UK on Friday were still digesting this cut, and aren't yet revealing whether they'll pass it on. If they do, then it could entice more people to move to a faster broadband connection.

BT is also halving the connection cost of some of its Datastream products, from £50 to £25.

Datastream is used by rival telcos to offer a wider range of wholesale broadband services to ISPs. Again, it is too early to say whether consumers and businesses will see these reductions reflected in the prices they pay.

All these special offers will be available from 12 January to 30 April, 2004.

BT ran a range of price cuts for its IPStream products at the beginning of this year, and many ISPs chose to pass the savings onto consumers.