Wanadoo in broadband push

net1

As of now the UK's Freeserve no longer exists as parent France Telecom rebrands the service as Wanadoo, its ISP service.

Wanadoo is positioned as broadband provider and Eric Abensur, UK CEO, said they are backing up that positioning with a new broadband product, a 512Kbp £17.99 (E27) service, which he admitted was actually a loss leader.

As part of its new UK vision, Wanadoo is banking on adding another one million broadband users during the course of this year Ð it currently has about 2.5 million broadband subscribers in total.

Wanadoo also has visions of a residential gateway for all, with TV on-demand over DSL and phone-to-phone VoIP forming the backbone of the cash cow. Abensur also said that the home gateway Ð with Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, VoIP and TV-on-demand capabilities Ð could be available to consumers by summer of this year.