A little like oom really from my point of view - I believe they are the favoured company within their sector and despite the markets - Oftel and the G3 nonsense they will climb back. They pay a divi and this wioll be seen to be increasingly important in the days to come. They have new management and are looking to enhance shareholder value .....

I hold and swing trade a few and not adverse to intraday trading them.

ains


BT in web-based investor relations drive

London, February 7 2003, (netimperative)



by Chris Lake

BT is launching a web-based scheme which it hopes will improve communications with its retail shareholders and help cut costs.


Dubbed 'ShareholderPlus', the system allows investors to sign up and receive BT communications - such as reports, news releases, mandates and, subject to a change in the law, electronic tax vouchers - by email, rather than by post.

BT said this will help it achieve cost savings - by not having to print and despatch reports - and pointed out that it is also good for the environment.

Furthermore, it has negotiated a number of deals with companies such as Virgin Wines, Apollo Travel, RSA and National Car Rental, to market the service and said it will add new offers in the future if it proves to be a success.

BT claims to be one of the first FTSE100 companies to launch such a programme, though it is likely that more will follow.

www.btplc.com/shareholderplus

do stop being silly and find some thing to do with yourself .... I have to complete the ENIC acceptance forms - nice 60% gain :-))

oftel ann

By Tim Richardson
Posted: 11/03/2003 at 13:17 GMT


BT Wholesale has published the latest list of exchanges to be converted to ADSL. All should be completed during May, except Wentworth and Brimscombe, which are earmarked for June.

Antrim, Northern Ireland
Badsey, Hereford & Worcester
Devonport, Devon
Dunblane, Central Region
Kidmore End, Oxfordshire

Attleborough, Norfolk
Dronfield, Derbyshire
Highclere, Hampshire
Ingleby Barwick, Cleveland
Kingston Blount, Oxfordshire
Odiham, Hampshire
Southam, Warwickshire
Wormley, Surrey, 300

Wentworth, Surrey, 250
Brimscombe, Gloucestershire

Er, next!

LONDON (AFX) - BT Group PLC today launched another strand of its broadband internet offensive, designed to add 100 mln stg of revenues in the next two years.
BT's Home of Possibilities services will offer customers low cost home monitoring and break-in alerts, computer networking, music and X-Box games.

"At the heart of our vision of the Home of Possibilities is the idea that there's more to an internet connection than just access to the web," said Angus Porter, managing director of BT's consumer unit.

BT wants to grow its 'always on', broadband internet network to 5 mln customers by 2006 from an estimated 1 mln.

ainsoph

Are you bankrupt yet ?

another non- believer ains. should I splat him/

heheheheh, erk, spalat

MIDGER

I think this illustrates where the future is for BT ..... as soon as the war starts they will start bouncing ......

ains





BT offers home security for broadband users
17:34 Wednesday 12th March 2003
Reuters


BT has created new online services, including home security and education, for its broadband customers
BT has embarked on a campaign to promote new broadband services for home users.

The additional services include a house security system, networking for multiple-computer homes, a portable radio that pulls broadcasts off the Internet, the launch of Microsoft's Xbox Live games console, and online education.

These services are expected to generate 100m in extra revenue by 2005 for BT, which faces increased competition in a telephony market showing paltry growth.

BT says it is on target to hit one million broadband users by the middle of this year, but it hopes such services will help get it to a further goal of five million subscribers by 2006.

To dramatically boost the numbers in a country that once lagged on broadband among wealthier nations, BT cut wholesale prices for fast digital subscriber lines to less than 15 a month last April, bringing its retail price down to 27.

"The price of broadband is unlikely to change dramatically," Angus Porter, manager director of BT Consumer, told reporters at a news conference. "The issue is going to be whether the services that broadband can unlock justify (the price)."

Following recent moves by retailers Tesco and Carphone Warehouse into residential phone services, BT appears to be turning the tables. Starting at 28.50 a month for three years, BT said it would also sell home computer systems to time-constrained or less-technically able people, as well as installation, service and support.

The new Internet radio, due for launch in mid-2003, will sell for 160, while equipment to connect two home computers to one broadband line will cost just under 250 when launched this month.

A home monitoring system, which will allow home owners to receive text messages or have neighbours phoned when alarms go off, will sell for 300 with 12 months service from May.

Porter said such applications were already possible, but BT wanted to earn its money by making them simple to use.

Subscriptions for the BT Learning Centre cost 4 a month, and the Xbox Live console will go on sale on Friday.

BT will also be boosting its phone bill by allowing its click & buy online payments service users to put charges on their BT bill starting next month, which gets around the need to give out credit card details on the Internet.

It's now down a whole pound since you starting buying you IDIOT!!!

I`ll bounce him ainslurp,
my this is a fine bottle of White Spirit you dropped off this morning,cheers, ignore them alslop, ignore them, they are brain-dead,old camper ,

rasp, retch,giant cockroaches,eh? hello

heheheh,

MAJORBLITZED, heheh

Back to 155p and up 10.46% on the day with volumes 50% higher than average - easily outperformed sector and market. Interestingly, more volume than OOM which was up 8.9%



ains

Up again today and climbing the top ten gainers on the leader board - now 162.5p with nearly 5 million traded


ains :-))

Owen Gibson media guardian
Friday March 14, 2003

BT has unveiled a host of broadband products aimed at stimulating take up of its high speed internet service - including a portable radio that can connect
to the web.
Angus Porter, the head of BT Retail's consumer division, told MediaGuardian.co.uk that the company's latest push would help them reach customers who were not yet convinced of the benefits of the new technology.

"This is about getting to 2 and 3 million customers and complements what is happening at the other end of the pipe with more content becoming available to users. We're going to have to make the point that you don't need to be a genius to do this stuff," said Mr Porter.

As well as the portable radio, which will allow broadband customers to listen to thousands of internet radio stations anywhere in their house, the new range also includes home security and surveillance products.

BT is also launching a home network system that will allow a single broadband connection to be shared by different computers and appliances without the need for wires.

The company hopes that by launching products such as the radio and promoting its tie up with Microsoft's X-Box games console it can persuade customers who are not heavy web users to invest in the technology.

The X-Box Live service, which launches today, will enable owners of the Microsoft console who have a broadband connection to compete against players across Europe and talk to one another while doing so.

The portable radio, which will retail for 159 and is likely to be bundled with broadband offers, picks up a signal from a unit attached to a PC and tunes in to the thousands of online radio stations on offer.

While BT is confident of reaching its target of 1 million broadband connections by this summer - new customers are signing up at the rate of 25,000 a week - Mr Porter accepted that progressing beyond die-hard web enthusiasts would be more difficult.

Ben Verwaayen, the BT chief executive, last year placed broadband at the centre of the group's strategy for revenue growth and promised to have 5 million connections through BT lines by 2006 in a make-or-break move.

Soon after arriving at BT last February, Mr Verwaayen kick-started the campaign by slashing 10 from the price of a broadband connection and launching a huge advertising push.

However, BT executives privately acknowledge broadband must mean more than faster games and music downloads if it is to appeal to the mass market.

Mr Porter said other products on the way that utilised the technology included security devices, baby monitors and gadgets that took advantage of the "always on" high-speed connection.

good to see BT in the 170's again :-)) ..... shorters seem to have got burned off albeit market looks a tad down on the eve of war


analysts at Investec Securities told clients that it believes BT Wholesale unit will easily meet its target of reducing costs by 200m by the end of this month.


ains

27 more exchanges pass trigger levels
Wednesday 19 March 2003, 2:35:31 AM
United Kingdom
Written by Sarah Brown


World-of-ADSL has reported details about the latest 27 exchanges to pass trigger levels and have ready for service dates set, which will be between May 28 and June 25:



BT Scotland has announced it is to virtually double the coverage of asymmetric digital subscriber line (ADSL) broadband in the Highlands.


In the north of Scotland ADSL broadband is currently available only to people in Inverness, Elgin and Culloden, however, support from Highlands and Islands Enterprise (HIE) is set to deliver broadband services to an additional five exchanges.


BT also added that it is also aiming to enable one more exchange, thus, collectively, the initiative will make the technology available to a third of businesses and households in the Highlands.

BT moving up as rumours come through that US troops are moving forward towards the border .....

Outperforning market and sector @ 175p which is a session high



ains

2002 - the first year of broadband

London, March 19 2003, (netimperative)



by Chris Lake

Two new reports have revealed that consumer uptake of broadband exploded during 2002, paving the way for a four-fold surge in connections throughout Europe by 2006.


A report published by the Office of National Statistics discovered the number of households that connected to the high-speed internet in 2002 grew by 256%. 'Always-on' permanent connections now account for more than one in ten internet connections in the UK.

The report linked the growth to the ubiquitous marketing campaigns that have been implemented by the likes of BT in order to increase mass market awareness of the high-speed internet, as well as falling prices.

Meanwhile, the latest Datamonitor study into European broadband adoption suggests there will be a four-fold rise in connections by 2006, when 41m households across Europe will have access to the high-speed internet.

By that time, the UK is likely to have surpassed France to make it the second largest broadband-connected country after Germany.

Datamonitor believes that prices need to fall to the equivalent of $25 per month before consumers adopt the faster internet en masse.

Datamonitor said the online content market, which will be driven by broadband, will be worth about 3.4bn by late-2006, when Europeans will spend an average of $76 per year on content and services. The content market is estimated to be worth about $350m in 2003.

Deutsche Bank is removing BT Group BT.L from its UK focus list following a strong rally in the share price.

Deutsche said in a research note that it did not believe that BT's share valuation was stretched.

"Neither is it compelling given that BT is lacking a mobile component to give it any chance of achieving top line growth," said the note from Deutsche analyst Martin Mabbutt.

Deutsche rated the stock a "buy" and had a 236 pence target for the shares.

BY GARETH MACKIE BUSINESS EDITOR


TELECOMS giant BT today accused the main industry union of distorting the truth over its plans to open two call centres in India that will eventually employ 2200 people.

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BTs retail arm, spoke out against the Communication Workers Union as employees prepared to stage protests today at 34 call centres around the UK, in what could be a precursor to strikes.

The union has expressed fears BT is preparing to move thousands of jobs, including 1200 in Scotland, to India. But Mr Danon said the group still intended massive investment for its UK centres: "The investment of 105 million will safeguard the jobs of 17,000 people."

He added: "While I fully respect the CWUs role in representing their members interests, some of their words are distorting the true situation and helping no one."

BT employs around 12,000 people in Scotland, three-quarters of whom are engineers, while BT Retail has 2450 people working in its call centres north of the Border.

Mr Danon said: "It is our policy to consult closely with the unions on any initiatives that affect our people and the India issue was no exception. We have been engaging with them for several months, but it was the union that walked away from the negotiating table."

The union insisted that, while it held talks with BT on the India plan in January, the two sides simply agreed to disagree.

A CWU spokesman rejected Mr Danons claim of distortion and accused BT of "spin", adding: "To say we walked away is very provocative and simply not true."

Many companies outsource back-office functions to Indian firms, or set up their own units to service global clients from a country with a skilled but relatively low-cost workforce.

The opening of the BT centres in India - where salaries are around 1.25 an hour compared with 5 to 10 in Britain - is part of BTs strategy to consolidate 104 UK locations into 33 centres and save 150m a year.

Mr Danon said: "It is in the best all-round interests of our shareholders, our customers and our people."

But the CWU pointed out that BT Retail earns almost all its revenue through British employees, and the Indian move amounts to taking 2200 jobs out of its home economy.

The two centres in New Delhi and Bangalore will handle directories and phone conferencing. They will be owned by Indian firms HCL Technologies and Infosys Technologies. Moving work to India is part of BTs plan to retain market share in directory inquiry services after losing its monopoly four months ago. One firm entered the market this week offering directory calls for half the price of BT.

Mr Danon repeated his promise that no permanent BT staff would lose their jobs as a result of the move to India.

However, the issue for CWUs deputy general secretary, Jeannie Drake, is that call centre job losses would have a huge impact on some of the poorest parts of the UK.

"If BT gets away with this, the effects on local economies could be disastrous," Ms Drake said ahead of todays protests, expected to take place at call centres across Scotland, Wales and England.

She added: " If BT does not take a more reasoned stance we will not hesitate to sanction industrial action."

20 Mar 2003 18:55 GMT

BT outlines aggressive corporate outsourcing plans

LONDON (Reuters) - BT Group, already Britain's dominant residential phone company, has described plans for earning hundreds of millions more in revenue by selling outsourced communications services to big companies.
BT's BT.L order book for the information and communications technology market was 4.2 billion pounds in the financial year ended March 2002, giving it an 11 percent market share which it hopes to raise to 13 percent by March 2005.

Though BT declined to give an exact revenue target, analysts expect the ICT market to grow by six percent annually, implying an extra 1.6 billion pounds in orders and hundreds of millions in additional annual revenue if BT meets its own expectations.

"It's audacious," Catherine Hawley, senior vice president of applications hosting for BT Ignite, told reporters at a news conference on Thursday. "The market is growing at an incredible rate."

Total revenue at Britain's former telecoms monopoly was 20.6 billion pounds last year. Around 1.6 billion came from purpose-built services, such as corporate email systems, that are managed directly by BT.

This is the area in which BT wants to grow, and a spokeswoman said it had generated 2.1 billion pounds in the first three quarters of this financial year.

But BT faces competition from technology companies such as International Business Machines Corp. IBM.N and Electronic Data Systems Corp. EDS.N in the ICT market, which also includes Web hosting, data storage, and internal network management.

Hawley conceded that if BT provided only basic network connections, it would become a "utility" devoid of growth.

The group will continue to compete head to head with telecoms companies such as Cable & Wireless Plc CW.L , Colt Telecom Group Plc CTM.L and Energis, which are under similar pressure to sell higher-margin services to customers.

But Paul Rosher, head of infrastructure product management at BT Ignite, said one of its biggest competitors would be in-house information technology departments.

"It's a bit like the turkeys voting for Christmas," he said of corporate IT employees letting their jobs go to BT. "So we need to engage the right people in the company."

Last month, BT signed a large outsourcing contract with the European arm of U.S. manufacturer Honeywell International Ltd HON.N , which BT said was similar in size to a seven-year, one billion euro deal struck with consumer products giant Unilever ULVR.L in November.

Good article ainsey! It's about BT, which is a company with shares! Nice work!

F