BT is launching a multimillion pound marketing push to persuade UK internet users to upgrade to high speed broadband connections following its recent price cuts.

The campaign will include BT's first TV ads pushing the benefits of a faster connection and will focus on its new Plug & Go product, which allows customers to install the product themselves.

"This marketing drive will help educate and excite the market by showing the real benefits broadband can bring. Launching our lower-priced, self-install product was the first step in achieving this goal," said Alison ritchie, the chief executive of BTopenworld.

"Promoting broadband aggressively, via increased marketing and distribution deals that bring broadband to the streets, is the next step," she added.

Two million CDs promoting the benefits of the medium and allowing customers to register for the self-install product will also be distributed to high street stores, backed by a series of national press ads and an online campaign.

Last month BT cut its wholesale charges for broadband to £14.75, allowing internet service providers to cut the price of high speed internet services to between £20 and £30.

It was seen as a major breakthrough in the drive to get users hooked up to the faster connections, which allow web users to download music tracks, games and video clips up to 10 times faster than a normal connection.

BT has pledged to have 1 million broadband customers hooked up by next summer and one in four of the population by 2005.

Earlier this week the BT chairman, Sir Christopher Bland, said broadband was vital to BT's strategy and the company would go all out to promote its benefits.