Broadband U.K. use nears 1 million

Britain's telecommunications industry is very close to signing its one-millionth broadband customer. An official announcement is expected this week, and the event is likely to be hailed by both government and telecom companies as proof that broadband is thriving in the United Kingdom. It has been less than six months since Britain reached 500,000 broadband users. "We're approaching one million broadband users. It should happen pretty soon, but we're not sure exactly when," an Oftel (Office of Telecommunications) representative told ZDNet UK.

Around 20,000 people are thought to be signing up for broadband each week, either from a cable company or an Internet service provider that is reselling British Telecommunications' broadband product. This is a massive improvement on last year and comes after several advertising campaigns and price cuts, of which the most significant was probably BT's decision to halve the cost of its wholesale asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL).

ZDNet UK's Graeme Wearden reported from London.

To read the full story, visit ZDNet UK.