BT makes a million high-speed connections.

Bt said yesterday it had hit its target of making one million wholesale connections to its broadband high speed internet network by summer 2003 - a target set in February last year when it had 145,000 connections.

Chief executive Ben Verwaayen said: "In February last year I set the challenging target. Well, we are there by early summer and it is a great achievement.

"The UK is one of the most competitive broadband environments in the world and this is shown by the fact that more than 100 service providers supply broadband over our phone lines to one million customers."

The company said that as a result of passing the milestone it was cutting its "trigger levels" - the number of customers in an area expressing an interest in broadband needed for it to be cost effective for BT to upgrade their local exchange to offer the service.

It said it was cutting every trigger level in the UK by 50, which automatically puts 69 local exchanges in line for an upgrade.

The announcement will be welcomed by campaign groups who have been collecting signatures from potential broadband customers to encourage BT to upgrade their local exchange.