Last week BT signed up its 15 millionth user to its high speed network.

It is now 10 years since broadband was first introduced in the UK and it is now used by almost three quarters of the UK’s homes and small businesses. Britain can now boast a higher take up rate than any other developed nation due to widespread availability and low prices.

It was Virgins predecessors NTL and Telewest who first offered broadband services in  2000. BT became serious about broadband services in 2002 when prices were slashed by former chief excecutive Ben Verwaayen after broadband equipment was installed in local telephone exchanges.

BT was signing up almost 5,000 new customers each day although that rate has slowed down in the last couple of years due to a price war in the fixed broadband market.

Virgin Media serves 4.2 million customers over its cable network  although last week it was revealed that 9 million people in the Uk have still never used the internet. Almost two thirds of the 15 million customers using BT’s  network are using a rival internet provider such as Sky or Talk Talk who use BT’s infrastructure.

BT is now investing a further £2.5 billion to roll out fibre broadband to 2 thirds of the UK.