BT retail DSL market share slips some more

'Disappointed'

BT Retail's slice of new DSL punters continues to slide, according to the telco's own figures released today. The former monopoly admits that the figures are "disappointing" but remains chipper that it is still the UK's largest broadband ISP.

Of the 4.1m wholesale BT DSL connections at the end of December, 1.49m were made via BT's ISP operation. Compared to the previous quarter, BT's share of DSL connections has dipped from 39 per cent to 36 per cent.

The slide is even more disappointing since it was only in March last year that BT stated publicly that it wanted to "maintain a 40 per cent plus share of the retail DSL sector".

Of the 813,000 wholesale DSL lines added in the three months to the end of September, one in four were snapped up via BT Retail.

Duncan Ingram, head of broadband and internet services at BT Retail, told The Register: "It is disappointing by our standards but we're still the UK's largest broadband ISP. We had a slow start to the quarter but a strong finish."

No doubt BT Retail's decision today to ramp up the speed of its retail broadband service to 2 Meg for all except those on its Broadband Basic package is part of a broader plan to help arrest the telco's decline in market share. ®

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