BT has followed in the footsteps of its ISP rivals today and announced that it is upping the speed of its retail broadband service at no extra cost.

BT Broadband and BT Yahoo! Broadband will now run at 2 Meg while the speed of BT Broadband Basic will be doubled to 1 Meg. If phone lines won't support the new higher rates, then BT says it will "offer the best speed available for your line".

The new speeds will kick in for new consumer customers from 17 February and for new business customers from 1 April. Migration of existing customers will start from the same dates.

Said the UK's former telecoms monopoly: "The move will mean BT's 1.4m retail broadband customers will transfer to a new super-fast standard. Most consumer and business customers will have their speed increased up to 2 Mb...those with BT Broadband Basic will have their speed increased from 512k up to 1 Mb."

The telco reckons the higher speeds will pave the way for exciting new services such as video-over-broadband and online gaming.

On Monday, AOL UK announced that it would double the speed of its broadband products without charging its 750,000 or so net users more. ®

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