BT maps out path from ISDN to ADSL

BT has finally decided its migration path to take users from ISDN to ADSL, but analysts say the telco's offer to convert firms for £100 is a missed opportunity.

From today until the end of the year, BTopenworld is running an offer allowing users to upgrade to ADSL for £100, plus any relevant ADSL installation fee.

The fee covers buying out existing ISDN contracts (with BT Retail) and the charge of converting the user's phone line from ISDN to ADSL.

Research company Ovum forecasts there will be 703,000 business ISDN lines and 106,000 residential ISDN lines installed in the UK by the end of 2001, compared with its forecast of 28,000 residential DSL customers and 7000 business DSL subscribers.

Analysts say the decision to charge a fee shows that BT is still suffering from internal strife, and that it has missed a chance to boost the installation of ADSL broadband in Britain.

Zeta Tsatsani, senior analyst at Ovum, said: "BT should be looking to be more aggressive in rolling out ADSL. The best strategy would have been to charge no fee, as the revenue possibilities of a larger installed base are greater than the revenues of charging £100 a time."

Nicholas Blades, principal consultant at Schema, said conflicting pressures on BT Retail, responsible for ISDN, and BTopenworld, which has ADSL in its portfolio, had delayed the creation of a clear migratory path from ISDN to ADSL. He also said that two sets of billing, order handling and order managing services - and middle managers assessed by performance targets - had muddied the waters.

"There are vested interests within BT that don't want ADSL to get to market as quickly as other people do," Blades said.

"But BT showing some sort of migration path from their legacy ISDN products to their Openworld ADSL products is sensible. It may even encourage the adoption of ISDN as an intermediate technology," he added.

Last year, users were furious that they could not upgrade from ISDN to ADSL after being put at the bottom of the waiting list behind analogue users wishing to have ADSL installed.

They were then further incensed to find they could not cancel their ISDN contracts to upgrade without incurring heavy penalties. By comparison with the BT-controlled UK, Germany has over seven million ISDN users and France over two and a half million.

Indeed, even today's offer of a total liability of £100 is limited to businesses and those residential customers who pre-registered for the firm's 'Big Offer' scheme last year.

Those who did not are currently still liable for all fees relating to exiting their ISDN contracts, although BT has said this process is under review.