NTL has announced that it now has half a million residential broadband internet customers.
The cable company launched the new 1-Megabit service earlier this year, claiming that a combination of a powerful cable modem and NTL’s fibre optic network make the service twenty times faster than a normal dial-up internet connection.
Commenting on the success of the service, Barclay Knapp, CEO of NTL, said: “This is a remarkable achievement and is testament to the quality of our broadband services.”
NTL estimates that 60% of the total UK broadband user base have selected high-speed internet via a cable modem. The company also claims that in homes with a choice between NTL Broadband and ADSL, around 80% choose NTL Broadband.
The relative success of its broadband marketing campaign has been one of the few crumbs of comfort for NTL in a trying year for the cable industry as a whole. The company is in the process of restructuring its finances and is set to complete a £7 billion debt-for-equity swap in the near future (see NTL And Telewest Press Ahead With Refinancing Plans).
The broadband picture Despite a relatively slow start, the UK broadband market is growing at a rapid rate and the latest report from communications regulator, Ofcom, shows that more than one million UK households now have a high-speed broadband internet connection (see UK Hits One Million Broadband Homes).
The figures from telecoms operators show that the amount of broadband connections has doubled over the last six months, with the number of new connections now running at over 20,000 per week.
NTL’s cable rival, Telewest recently announced that it had signed up its 250,000th broadband customer, while BT claims to have half a million ADSL users.
