BT has coughed £15.8m cash for Brightview, the ISP group behind internet access from Waitrose, Madasafish, and Global.

The Brightview ISP brands, which have a total of 62,000 broadband customers, regularly buck market trends (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/07/03/uswitch_survey/) to top customer satisfaction (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/03/22/watchdog_broadband_survey/) surveys. Established in 2001, the firm was last sold in 2004 (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/02/08/brightview_invox/), for £25m, when it had 300,000 dial-up punters.

BT Retail chief executive Ian Livingstone said: "This acquisition will ensure that Brightview's customers can benefit from our market-leading services, resources, and technology development as well as the excellent customer service they're already receiving."

Privately-held Brightview coined EBITDA of £3m for the year ending 30 June 2006, on the back of revenues of £11m. The purchase is BT's second swallow of a relative minnow in the last year, after the £67m in loose change it dropped for PlusNet last November (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/16/bt_bids_plusnet/).

BT was linked to pricier takeover target Pipex earlier this year, but the rumour fizzled, with Tiscali emerging as the only (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/06/13/tiscali_to_buy_pipex/) interested party. ®

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