BT offers flexible broadband

BT will let broadband customers control the speed of their connections under an initiative announced today.

So-called Speed-Flexing will let customers temporarily upgrade from 512kbps up to 2mbps in a few mouse clicks. Customers must pay in advance for the accelerated access, although BT didn't disclose prices. A trial of the service will begin in April.

In a string of broadband related announcements, BT also said customers of its BT Broadband Basic service, announced last week, would be able to buy extra credit online if they use up their 1Gb monthly download limit before the end of the month.

BT said the ability to upgrade your broadband connection temporarily would enable downloading of DVD quality video content. New content providers for BT broadband customers will be announced on 6 April.

BT also announced BT Communicator, an upgrade of its BT Yahoo messaging product that will let you make calls to any phone, anywhere, via your computer. This will be launched in September and will at a later date be upgraded to allow four-way video chat.

For customers using home networking, BT will launch a service later this month that will let technical support staff access your wireless router remotely and help configure your home network. BT Remote Management System will also let staff upgrade your software remotely, with your permission.

Finally, BT announced BT Rich Media, which lets any content provider add digital rights management encoding to their material. Launching in April in partnership with Real, BT will collect a £100 start-up fee then a slice of revenue for downloading each file. BT expects the service to appeal to content providers ranging from record labels to home users.