CARPHONE Warehouse announced plans yesterday to invest £60 million on an aggressive push into the broadband market as it reported a 25 per cent jump in revenues.

The phone group is to invest the money over the next three years, putting its own equipment into up to 1,000 BT exchanges — a process known as local loop unbundling.

The move, which will give it greater control over the services it offers to its customers, will, it claims, help its aim of becoming the main alternative telecoms services provider to BT.

The move should also increase the profits and margins it makes from its voice and broadband customers. Though the savings it makes from the service, which will be accessible to around 70 per cent of the population, should be passed onto customers the group declined to give give further detail ahead of its launch.

Charles Dunstone, chief executive of Carphone, had previously said that the LLU process — already used by players such as EasyNet and Bulldog, the consumer broadband arm of Cable & Wireless — was uneconomical. But he said that recent regulatory changes and cuts in the price of doing it had made it a viable service.

He said: “This is the way to go . . . to give real competitive value on broadband and calls.”

The broadband market is fiercely competitive. Britain has seven or eight significant broadband providers — including BT, NTL and AOL as well as many smaller players — and all are competing aggressively on both speed and pricing to win custom. But Carphone believes its strong brand and retail presence — it has more than 500 British stores — gives it an advantage.

Carphone revealed the broadband plans as interim results showed a 36 per cent jump in profit £37 million on revenues up 25 per cent to £1.3 billion.

It now has more than one million voice customers and around 70,000 broadband customers.

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