For the third quarter ended December 31, the London, UK-based carrier posted net income of 1.46bn pounds ($2.85bn), a dramatic rise compared to the 411m pounds ($805m) it made in the year-ago quarter. This tripling of profit at the former UK incumbent was mostly because of a 969m pound ($1.89bn) tax credit. Profit before exceptional items rose 13% to 465m pounds ($910m). Sales rose 5% to 5.13bn pounds ($10.03bn) from 4.88bn pounds ($9.56bn) a year ago.

This is another strong set of results; our strategy is delivering and the positive trends are gathering momentum, said chief executive Ben Verwaayen. The revenue growth of 5% reflects continued strong growth in new wave services and a robust defence of our traditional business, underpinned by growth in active consumer customers for the first time in four years.

BT’s Retail unit, which includes the traditional voice business reported sales up 1% at 2.13bn pounds ($4.17bn). This is the first time this unit has grown in four years, and while BT said traditional revenue declined by 5%, new-wave revenue grew by 31%, driven primarily by broadband and other new-wave services. BT also said that new-wave revenue was 21% of total revenue in the quarter, up from 16% last year.

BT said customers are now moving toward higher value packages. After four years of decline, the number of active consumer voice customers grew by 37,000 in the quarter.

Broadband revenue grew by 24% to 233m pounds ($456m) with BT Retail connections exceeding 3.2 million by the end of the quarter, an increase of 239,000 in the quarter.

There are now more than 10 million wholesale broadband connections, and the market continues to grow strongly, said Verwaayen. In an intensely competitive market, BT Retail’s share of the net additions in the quarter was 34%. Openreach has reached 1.5 million LLU connections this month. The sales orders won by BT Global Services in the quarter were 2.5bn pounds ($4.89bn).

Openreach’s revenue in the third quarter rose 3% to 1.31bn pounds ($2.57bn), while BT Wholesale external revenue rose 4% to 1.02bn pounds ($2.01bn). BT Global Services revenue grew by 4% to 2.29bn pounds ($4.48bn).

During the quarter BT also successfully upgraded the first end-user customers to its 21CN infrastructure in the village of Wick in South Wales. The upgrade, which took place without the need for an engineer visit, new telephone or a new telephone number, is part of the first phase of the national roll-out of 21CN in the UK.

BT said that in order to reach this milestone, it had rebuilt around 10% of the UK’s core national communications infrastructure, installed 21CN equipment at over 100 sites across the UK, laid more than 2,300 kilometres of new fiber-optic cable in South Wales, and invested more than 1,500 man years in developing new IT systems to support the new network.

Shares in the UK carrier rose 0.79% to 319 pence ($6.24) on the London Stock Exchange Thursday.