BT is set to sign up The Winrose Project, a charity helping disadvantaged young people in Leeds, UK, as its one millionth broadband customer on 09 June 2003. The company's chief executive, Ben Verwaayen, set a target of achieving 1 mil broadband users by summer 2003 when he joined the company in February 2002, at which time the company had 145k broadband subscribers. Verwaayen is targeting 2 mil broadband customers by 2004 and 5 mil customers by 2006. The company is expected to be generated almost GBP700 mil turnover from broadband operations by 2004-2005. Of the company's total broadband users, more than 50% are BT customers, with the remainder subscribing to around 130 other Internet service providers which provide services via BT lines. By end-2003, BT hopes to connect 80% of UK households to broadband-enabled exchanges, vs 71% at present. The company is reducing the 'trigger levels' which must be reached before it will upgrade an exchange by a further 25% from the current level, which requires around 250 people to register their interest in receiving broadband.
