BT Wireless, the holding company for the group's mobile phone assets, yesterday launched a defence of WAP services, the wireless net technology which has met with widespread media criticism.
Peter Erskine, BT Wireless's chief executive, admitted that WAP had been over-hyped but said the services had proven popular with customers and driven average revenues of users more than 21% higher.
The average annual revenue from one of BT Cellnet's WAP customers is running at £539 for post-pay customers compared to £444 on conventional handsets the company said.
Among WAP users, 20% of the revenue generated is from web access and 80% from voice traffic. WAP has been criticised for the quality of services available and for the time taken to access the web.
In five months the company has signed up 400,000 WAP subscribers, which Mr Erskine said was lower than anticipated due to delays in the launch of banking services. The first banking service on BT Cellnet was launched by Egg, around 10 days ago.
"These numbers dispell the myth that people don't like WAP," Mr Erskine said. "The cynicism surrounding WAP is simply poison from those networks without services. We are winning customers and average revenues are fantastic, so customers must like it."
BT Cellnet plans to make the next upgrade, GRPS - which will double speed and introduce "always on" web access - widely available by the year's end, Mr Erskine added.
The group was presenting a first glimpse at the figures for BT Wireless, formed in April as part of a restructuring of BT.
The chief assets include BT Cellnet, Viag Interkom in Germany and a stake in Japan's J-Phone. Revenues are predicted to grow by 51% to £6.8bn during this financial year.
BT Wireless has been tipped as a candidate for a separate float as a means of reducing debt at its parent - speculation that Mr Erskine declined to comment on. BT has said it will make further announcements on any proposed sales by the end of the year.
BT Cellnet's post-pay customer base is continuing to decline as the market for pre-pay grows. The third quarter will show a fall of 100,000 as the base continues to migrate towards pre-pay.
