LONDON (Alliance News) - BT Group PLC's Chief Executive Officer Gavin Patterson set out the company's future strategy in Britian, including aims for a universal minimum broadband speed of 5-10 megabits per second, aims to go beyond the UK's current plans to cover 95% of premises with fibre broadband, and a new 'Openreach charter' to address customer service issues.
At a conference in London, Patterson committed to BT's support for the UK government in delivering a universal minimum broadband speed, and pledged the company would introduce a satellite broadband service for some of the UK's more remote premises by the end of the year.
The company plans to go beyond the UK government's current target of 95% fibre availability, as a result of what it called "success dividend" clauses in contracts covering rollout co-funded by BT, Whitehall and local councils, which mean BT has to reinvest or return money if take0up exceeds certain levels in areas where public funds have been used. GBP130 million is already being released and "is potentially available to get the UK towards having fibre available at 96% of premises," BT said.
BT has come under some regulatory pressure as part of UK telecoms regulator Ofcom's ongoing strategic review of digital communications. In particular, Ofcom earlier this year put the potential separation of BT's infrastructure division, Openreach, on the table. Competitors have called for the division to be separated from BT in the past over concerns surrounding the fairness of BT both running services and controlling the infrastructure over which the services are run.
Last Friday Sky PLC's Chief Strategy Officer Mai Fyfield, writing in The Telegraph, accused BT of damaging broadband customer service and reliability by failing to invest.
The chief executive of the Openreach division, Joe Garner, Tuesday said there was more to do on service, and set out an ambition to exceed Ofcom's 2017 minimum standards for delivering new connections on time by 6%. Openreach is introducing a new service called 'View My Engineer', which gives customers text progress updates, their Openreach engineer's name and mobile number.
Additionally, Garner highlighted the issue that customers often cannot directly deal with Openreach, only their retail broadband provider, said he is open to Openreach dealing directly with end-customers, subject to consultation with Ofcom and telecom providers.
Patterson noted the need for "a supportive regulatory and government policy environment to bring about a commercially viable investment."
"We want to forge an ultrafast future for Britain and stand ready to help government deliver the broadband speeds necessary for every property to enjoy modern day internet services, such as high definition TV streaming and cloud computing. To achieve this, we need a collaborative effort across industry and government," Patterson said in a statement.
Shares in BT were down 1.2% at 408.60 pence.
By Hana Stewart-Smith; hanassmith@alliancenews.com; @HanaSSAllNews
Copyright 2015 Alliance News Limited. All Rights Reserved.
BT (BT.A)