NTL To Offer Wholesale Broadband

NTL is planning to rent space on its broadband access network to rival companies in a bid to clear its mounting debt burden.

The move will see NTL offer a wholesale broadband product to other internet service providers (ISPs) alongside its own branded service. A spokesperson for NTL today confirmed that the company is holding talks with Freeserve and AOL UK and said: “The launch of a wholesale service is a definite possibility.”

The launch of a wholesale broadband product will allow NTL, which recently announced a series of redundancies and “sidelined” its central marketing department (see NTL Streamlines Central Marketing), to save on the costs of connecting broadband users to its own network and earn much-needed income from ISPs using the service.

The move would also place NTL in competition with BT in the wholesale broadband market, allowing the company to strengthen its combined high-speed internet, telephone and television offering.

BT’s chairman, Sir Christopher Bland recently said that NTL and Telewest posed a threat to BT and hinted that the company may expand into the television market within the next two years (see BT Set To Become A Media Company). Bland has since revised his standpoint implying that a move into TV is not a probability in the new future.

NTL: 01252 402 000 www.ntl.co.uk

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