BT Vision slow to attract new customers

BT Vision signed up just 18,000 new customers to its IPTV service in the three months to September, less than half of the 38,000 new sign-ups in the previous quarter.

To make matters worse, after cleansing its database, the total number of subscribers was 436,000, just 3,000 more than at the end of June.

Last month the company announced that it no longer expected to achieve the target of 2 to 3 million IPTV subscribers by December 2010.

The wider group did well during the quarter, with BT Broadband attracting 72,000 more customers and taking its home broadband subscriber base to 4.9 million.

This increase was attributed to a promised upgrade of the broadband service to 20mb, from 8bm currently.

However BT Group Plc’s profits for the six months to September 30th fell 45% to £547m, compared with the 2008 same period.