Five ISPs win £200,000 from BT

Graeme Wearden ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 07 Aug 2002 16:10 BST

BT has chosen the names of the five ISPs who will receive £200,000 each to spend on broadband advertising over the next few months.

The successful ISPs are Easynet, Colt, One.Tel, Albion and Colloqium. A formal announcement is expected from BT tomorrow, which should give details of what the companies plan to do with the money.

As ZDNet UK reported last week, BT will also be giving grants of £50,000 to several other ISPs.

ISPs were invited to submit their applications for these marketing awards earlier this year, and were told that the companies who came up with the most innovative broadband marketing campaigns would win. The winners were chosen by an independent panel that included a representative from the Institute of Marketing.

Phil Worms, head of Broadband at One.Tel, told ZDNet UK that his company was planning to use its £200,000 grant to show people the positive benefits of a high-speed Internet connection.

"People now know what broadband is, and they know how to tell whether or not they can get it at home. We now need to focus on the broadband experience," Worms said.

"We're planning to take the message out onto the road and show people what broadband is all about," Worms added.

One.Tel is expected to release more details about its forthcoming broadband promotions soon.

This is the second time that BT has subsidised the marketing activity of ISPs who sell broadband services based on its ADSL products.

Earlier this year, BT awarded 41 marketing grants to ISPs, and said last week that the scheme had been a big success.

"By mid-July this year, 13 percent of all new broadband installations were specifically stimulated by the campaigns that service providers ran under the marketing campaign," said Bruce Stanford, BT's director of broadband, at a press conference last week.

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