BT Press Release 10 September 2002

BT ANNOUNCES FIRST EXCHANGE TO REACH DEMAND TRIGGER LEVEL FOR BROADBAND UPGRADE

BT today announced demand for ADSL had hit the target leading to upgrading the first exchange under its broadband registration scheme.

The exchange, at Todmorden in West Yorkshire, is the first exchange to hit the trigger level set in a new scheme launched 10 weeks ago to stimulate broadband demand. Exchanges at Penn in Buckinghamshire, Merthyr Tydfil, Inverness, Bishops Waltham in Hampshire and Irby on the Wirral are following hard on its heels.
Since the registration scheme was launched on July 1, more than 71,000 individual registrations of demand for broadband have been logged by service providers and demand at 17 exchanges now exceeds 50 per cent of the trigger level set.
Service providers are now being asked to validate the demand at Todmorden so work can begin on upgrading the exchange for broadband.

Under the registration scheme BT Wholesale set a trigger level of 200 user registrations for the Todmorden exchange, reflecting the costs of providing broadband service there.
Customer registrations logged by the broadband service providers against the Todmorden exchange have now topped the 200 target.

BT Wholesale director broadband Bruce Stanford said: "This is a significant milestone showing the strength of our demand-led approach to the next phase of ADSL rollout.

"This comes only two weeks after BT Wholesale started national newspaper advertising about the benefits of broadband. Now we're eagerly anticipating many more exchanges hitting their thresholds.

"Other exchanges, are nearing their trigger levels and the wider broadband availability this scheme is delivering will help toward BT's target of one million ADSL connections by summer 2003."

BT Wholesale commended the contribution of local campaigns, such as that run by the www.todtalk.com website at Todmorden, which have explained the benefits of broadband to friends and neighbours and encouraged people in the area to sign up for broadband.

Stanford added: "There is no doubt that local campaigns have helped drive demand. Now it's time for us to continue working together with the broadband service providers to bring broadband to Todmorden and more exchanges in the coming months."

For more information on the broadband demand registration scheme visit the www.bt.com/broadband website.