Telewest boosts Blueyonder with 1Mbit/s

Telewest plans to bolster its Blueyonder cable modem service this year with a 1Mbit/s service and improvements to packaged services and customer care.

The additions should make the company a more attractive alternative to BT's ADSL and NTL's rival cable service in the increasingly competitive high-speed internet access sector.

More pre-packaged deals for teleworkers are being developed. "We've found that where there is broadband, the propensity [to work from home] is higher," said Chad Raube, head of internet services at Telewest Blueyonder.

"Home-office and small-office use is a great application for broadband and the ability to work from home at Lan speed is obvious. We are now designing a service to meet the needs of that particular demographic this year, with secure firewall security and other capabilities," he added.

Telewest also hopes to alter public perceptions of poor customer care in the broadband sector.

"We're looking at more appointment-style installs rather than the 8am to noon slots where you don't know when [engineers are] going to turn up," Raube said.

NTL began offering 1Mbit/s services last week but Telewest hopes to trump it by offering complementary software such as peer-to-peer file sharing services and music downloads.

Telewest said the megabit deal would be available this year, but it did not provide more details.

Telewest added that its current trial of a broadband service for Sony PlayStation 2 users will be followed by commercial availability in the third quarter. Broadband deals on games consoles have long been seen as a way to spur web usage in households that do not have PCs.

www.blueyonder.co.uk