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AOL UK won't pass on BT ADSL price cuts
'Nothing new to pass on'
AOL UK says it has no plans to pass on today's wholesale ADSL price cuts because it claims there is "nothing new to pass on".
According to AOL, today's "price cut" is merely a re-packaging of a £25-off wholesale promo offer which ran for the first three months of the year.
In that instance, the promo sliced money off the up-front activation costs for ADSL. But that offer ended at the end of March with costs to ISPs rising again by £25 a month.
Today's cut in monthly wholesale fee is worth around £20 a year to ISPs.
In overall cost terms, today's cut in wholesale monthly charges for domestic users is merely the same as the previous promo but packaged differently
A spokesman for AOL told The Register: "Nothing has changed. BT is merely re-announcing the same cost cuts as before.
"In fact, compared to a week ago, our costs are now higher," he said.
Another industry insider told The Register privately that BT was effectively "dropping them in it" explaining that end users will see the headlines and expect to see that price cut passed on.
What customers don't know is that while BT is giving with one hand it is also taking with another, he said. ®
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