In a move designed to capitalise on the mood of change in the UK, BT has announced plans to scale-up its roll-out of super-fast broadband around the UK.
As part of an announcement which included better than expected full year results, BT chief executive Ian Livingston laid out a three year plan for the telecoms company, which includes upping previous commitments to invest £1.5 billion in new fibre to around 40 percent of UK homes by 2012. Under the new plan, BT will now invest around £2.5 billion in rolling out fibre to around two thirds of UK homes by 2015.
“We are investing in the future of our business, enhancing our TV offering and building on opportunities in our Global Services business,” said Livingston. “Assuming an acceptable environment for investment, we see the potential to roll out fibre to around two-thirds of the UK by 2015. This will take our total fibre investment to £2.5 billion, which will be managed within our current level of capital expenditure.”
BT believes that the new commitments will make the UK will one of the best connected countries in the world for so-called next generation broadband. The roll-out is already underway in some areas, with around four million homes expected to have access to fibre broadband by the end of this year, BT said.
However questions have been raised about the decision to scrap the 50p broadband tax in the last days of the Labour government and the question mark it raised over public sector funding for high-speed networks.
Commenting on the outlook for the business as a whole, Livingston said that the company was on track to improve its future. “During the next three-year period we expect to improve our underlying revenue trends, and grow EBITDA and free cash flow, while investing in the business, supporting the pension fund, reducing net debt and paying progressive dividends,” he said. “We are on track with our goal of creating a better business with a better future.”
Earlier this year BT announced that 130,000 more homes and businesses in the South-West of England could get access to so-called super-fast broadband, offering download speeds of up 60Mbps.
The telecoms company claims businesses could benefit from faster access to cloud computing technology. “There will be faster backup of computer systems and wider use of high-quality videoconferencing within firms and between them and their customers,” the company states.
The fibre technology being deployed by BT will be a mixture of Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) and Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC). “BT will be rolling out a mix of the two technologies but we expect that FTTC will be the most widely deployed,” the company said.
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Re: Scrapping The Broadband Tax. It's a comfort to know that the goverment has scrapped this tax, but only two days ago I was informed by BT that they are increase the line rental charge by 50p, is this to replace the money that they would have got from the goverment?