UK cable market leaders NTL and Telewest have joined forces in a national marketing campaign designed to boost British broadband uptake. Both companies offer customers broadband cable modem internet services at £24.99 per month which compares favourably with BT’s £39.99 per month ADSL access.
Currently broadband cable access is available to around 9 million homes in the UK and this is forecast ro rise to 11.6 million homes by the end of 2002, representing virtually all homes within NTL and Telewest’s serviceable areas. NTL and Telewest are able to enter into such a deal as there is no overlap between franchise areas, eliminating consumer choice in the broadband market.
NTL are currently working to upgrade the services in the London franchises aquired from Cable and Wireless last year, NTL hope that broadband services to these areas will be available by October 2001.
Last week McKinsey forecast that by 2005, around 25% of all homes in the UK would access the internet via broadband cable services citing cost and availability of services and awareness of the benefits of high speed access as the key factors in uptake (see Forecasts).
