NTL Launches Campaign Highlighting Benefits Of Broadband

NTL has embarked on a £5m advertising campaign to educate consumers about broadband technology. The cable group, which is aiming for 100,000 UK broadband subscribers by the end of this year, has found that a large proportion of the population is unaware of its benefits.

A recent survey conducted by the group found that 69% of people in the UK had not heard of the term “broadband”. Of the 31% which had, one third thought that it referred to radio and over half were not aware of its advantages over other forms of internet access.

NTL Broadband Internet, which allows consumers to buy or rent cable modems allowing high-speed, always-on net access, currently has just 13,000 subscribers in the UK. The group hopes the new campaign will increase awareness of the benefits of the technology, in particular its avoidance of the dial-up process which currently dominates internet connectivity.

The service is now available across homes within NTL cabled areas allowing consumers permanently-on connection with access speeds of up to 512kbps via cable modem. Roll-out has been hampered, however, by BT’s slowness in opening up its local exchanges for broadband use.

The group is also trailing new broadband services including embedding cable modems into its digital set-top boxes within the Manchester area.

Jerry Roest, NTL’s group managing director of broadband, said: “The widespread availability of broadband access is essential to the next phase of development of the internet…In America, cable modem is already the technology of choice with over 4.2 million installations.”

NTL: 01252 402 000