Blueyonder is signing up 900 new broadband customers a day, according to the latest figures from the UK cableco Telewest.

The company said that as of yesterday its ISP, Bueyonder, had 107,000 broadband users putting it neck and neck with BT’s ISP, BTopenworld.

However, the cableco has said it will meet BT’s challenge head on by rolling out a 1 megabit service later this year, making it twice as fast as BT’s most popular service. And it also intends to go head-to-head with BT on price.

Commenting earlier this week on BT’s decision to drop the cost wholesale DSL Adam Singer, group chief exec of Telewest, said mockingly: "It was getting hard building broadband Britain by ourselves and it's great that BT has finally turned up to lend a hand.

"So far, with our cable colleagues at NTL, we have connected more broadband customers than BT despite the latter's position as the dominant telephone
provider in the UK," he said.

And he added: "Using the technical superiority of our cable network over DSL, we are going to play full-contact broadband with BT and will keep raising the speed till they run out of puff."

Publishing its full year results for 2001 total turnover 17 per cent to £1.32 billion. Net loss, before exceptional items, was £801 million.

By mid morning shares in Telewest were up 2.75p (15.5 per cent) 20.5p. ®