BT plays BB price guessing game

Grow up

By Tim Richardson • Get more from this author

Posted in Telecoms, 28th March 2003 12:59 GMT

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What exactly is BT playing at? The telco seems to be gaining some perverse pleasure from leading people up the garden path concerning whether or not it plans cut the price of its broadband service.

Hints were dropped about a price review earlier this week when BT Wholesale met with ISPs to sketch out its plans for the next couple of months. Snag is, it seems BT only managed to confuse ISPs about its intentions with operators complaining that they have been "left in limbo".

Fast-forward to today and BT boss, Ben Verwaayen, is quoted in the Times as saying that the telco is "looking at everything, including pricing, to see how we can speed up the adoption of broadband".

Hold the front page. The only newsworthy point here would be if BT wasn't "looking at everything…to speed up the adoption of broadband".

So, BT may have secured a few headlines - big deal. But its prevarication is misleading ISPs who are expected to sell its wholesale broadband service. What way is that to treat their customers?

And what of the end users? With rumours of price reviews, anyone looking to sign up to ADSL might just be tempted to hold off until they know what's going to happen.

Either way, BT has done little more than confuse the situation. Well played. Well done. ®

ISPs left in limbo over ADSL price cut hints

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