BT has unveiled a capped, entry-level service that enables punters to take their "first step on the broadband ladder".

Costing £19.99 a month, BT Broadband Basic runs at speeds up to 512k - just as fast as BT's mainstream consumer broadband package. But strings are attached - the service has a 1Gb a month usage limit. This cap is unlikely to be enforced immediately, but BT will introduce more options from the summer, enabling punters to buy additional capacity.

BT Broadband Basic costs £19.99 a month (£20.99 if you don't pay by Direct Debit) with a set-up cost of £80 (£30 activation fee and £50 for the Voyager 105 DSL Modem) for a 12-month contract.

BT Broadband and BT Yahoo! Broadband customers can expect to face a £30 moving fee and they must also pay £50 for the Voyager modem. Also, BT Broadband Basic can only be used by a single PC and does not support home networking while phoning tech support comes at a price too.

Duncan Ingram, MD of BT Openworld, insists that the 1Gb limit is "plenty of capacity for half of broadband users". And people can always upgrade to other products if they want more capacity.

He dismissed entry-level products from "some of our competitors who offer so-called low cost broadband packages which, at best, run at half the speed of BT's basic broadband service. Getting not so broad broadband from other providers presents major limitations on what you can do on the Internet, with much more time spent waiting for things to download, like web pages, music tracks and video clips." ®