10:51am UK, Monday June 16, 2003

BT and web content provider Yahoo! are joining forces to provide an enhanced broadband service, it has been revealed.

The new venture, called BT Yahoo! Broadband, replaces BT's Openworld brand and promises to take on rivals such as AOL and Freeserve.

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It is part of a strategy to get five million users signed to BT broadband by 2006 . The current figure is just one million.

Included in the £29.99 a month price is free built-in anti-virus protection, parental controls, 100Mb of web space, and applications to access webcam and digital photo libraries.

Users can customise their personal homepage and email is provided through Yahoo!, with an anti-spam filter for junk mail.

The package, which costs the same as BT Openworld, will be available from September.

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, claimed the move would attract new users and enhance facilities for existing customers.

He said: "The alliance is the next step to realising a broadband Britain, delivering services and content which will appeal to the mass market."