BT Group has released its latest first quarter results to 31st March 2009 (Q1), which reveals that the operator managed to rack up a total of 4.8m retail broadband ( BT , PlusNet etc. ) customers. This growth (net DSL additions of 99,000) compares with 4.7m in Q4-2008 and 4.6m in Q3-2008.


BT's broadband Internet TV (IPTV) service, BT Vision, managed to top 423,000 customers, an increase from 398,000 on the previous quarter. BT Openzone's Wi-Fi minutes have increased by 80% against the same quarter last year to 120 million. Related free/shared Wi-Fi BT FON membership has also grown with members now totalling 220,000, up 37% on Q4-2008.

BT Wholesale’s revenue declined by 2% to £1,151m, the same level of decline as the previous quarter. The year on year revenue performance reflects the reduction as a result of continued migrations to cheaper unbundled (LLU) broadband and telephone line rental services from rivals.

Elsewhere BT continued to extend the availability of its 21CN broadband services. Wholesale Ethernet is currently available from more than 600 nodes across the UK; while Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC - up to 24Mbps ADSL2+) is now available to over 10m UK homes and businesses.

The operator is looking at accelerating the pace of roll out of its super-fast Fibre to the Home (FTTC) next-gen broadband programme by more than doubling the availability by the end of 2009/10, within the current capital expenditure budget. This would provide over 1m homes and businesses with speeds of up to 40Mbps.