BT blasted for 'pathetic' ADSL roll out

BT has been accused of giving its own ISP a headstart with the roll-out of ADSL services in the UK, and its rivals have threatened to fight the issue in court.

Freeserve and America Online (AOL) have accused the telco of giving them less installation appointments than BTopenworld, which is supposed to operate separately from BT.

Of the 35,000 ADSL installations made by BT so far, just under half of the connections were with BTopenworld even though it is just one of over 100 ISPs offering ADSL. BTopenworld said this week that it has been adding 1000 to 2000 ADSL customers a week.

BT's rivals claim that BT Ignite, the telco's wholesale division, has limited their allocation of ADSL slots to 100 a week. Both Freeserve and AOL are demanding that Oftel and BT explain this and are considering taking legal action.

John Pluthero, chief executive at Freeserve, said: "BT's revelation is a shocking admission that they are institutionally restricting the market share of Freeserve and other competing broadband providers. At the current, pathetic levels of allocation granted to us by BT, it would take us three to four years to get to where BTopenworld says it is today."

"Maybe this is why we are the last country in Europe to see ADSL. BT has succeeded in making it uneconomic and unavailable. UK consumers would be thoroughly justified in demanding the resignation of the entire BT board," he added.

Freeserve, which last month said it was only allocated 16 slots a day, said it made a complaint to Oftel in January and is awaiting a response. The ISP said it is "certainly considering legal action, but will await a decision from Oftel".

AOL said BT had "utterly mishandled its ADSL rollout". A spokesman said: "We have given Oftel and BT until the end of tomorrow to come back to us to explain what is going on. If they don't come back to us, we will meet with external lawyers to consider what options are available to us." AOL said it wanted to avoid a legal confrontation if at all possible.

However, BT claims that the allocation of installation slots was done as fairly as possible. It said that when BT Ignite first launched its wholesale ADSL service, 23 ISPs signed up but that there are now more than 100 which means that installation slots have to be divided between all of them.

A spokesman said: "There is complete fairness and transparency in the allocation of installation slots."