UK broadband market sees further consolidation

uSwitch.com prediction that broadband market will continue to consolidate rings true.

Steve Weller, Head of Communications Services at uSwitch.com, comments:“Today’s BT announcement that it will buy PlusNet for £67million is further evidence of how UK broadband providers are having to consolidate to achieve growth in an increasingly saturated market. Broadband is BT’s key focus, but it’s proving difficult for the telecoms giant to further increase its market share due to the plethora of competitors. Purchasing PlusNet enables it to easily bring over 200,000 additional customers under its umbrella at a time when the competition for customers is particularly fierce.

“For PlusNet it’s been a difficult year as its overall customer satisfaction levels have dropped by 16% - a result of its customers experiencing a raft of service issues, ranging from service outages to the accidental deletion of 700Gb of customer emails. In the short term there will be no major change for PlusNet subscribers as BT are keeping the brand name and it will continue its own operations.

“This is another example of the rapidly consolidating broadband market. We expect to see more of this activity over the next six months.”