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

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

BT going well and at 180p intraday - up 3.61% along with the market and the sector - slightly outperforming with Bagdad said to be just 2 days away at this time ..... 5 week high

ains



Government backs industry broadband strategy
10:34 Friday 21st March 2003
Tony Hallett, silicon.com


The government has accepted a list of suggestions from the Broadband Stakeholder Group, but ensuring action will still be a challenge
The government has responded to suggestions from the UK's Broadband Stakeholder Group (BSG) and so far the pressure group likes what it's heard.

In a written statement to the House of Commons, E-minister Stephen Timms said: "Broadband in the UK has really taken off over the last year. We now have one of the most competitive markets in Europe -- with a wide choice of technology and some of the lowest prices worldwide.



"I am very pleased to accept the recommendations of the BSG. We are already taking much of the work forward."

The BSG, in its second annual report, made 15 recommendations and the government has broadly accepted all of them. In some quarters the government is still seen as holding back broadband rollout by failing to twist the arm of service providers -- as other countries have done -- and neglecting rural areas, but the BSG is nevertheless encouraged.

BSG chief executive Antony Walker said: "This is pretty positive and shows we are singing from the same hymn sheet. But agreeing to everything doesn't mean it won't be challenging (for them) to deliver on their commitments."

In particular, the government is looking for the public sector to aggregate its demand for broadband in certain areas, with the help of the Broadband Task Force. This makes it economical for service providers -- generally BT, in most areas -- to serve a community, including homes and the private sector.

Walker said this policy is going well but still has "huge challenges". For example, pooling procurement can slow down rollout.

Wireless is another area where the government must move carefully. Broadband local area networks, typically using a strain of the 802.11 standard, are a way of cheaply sharing high speed connections, but carving up spectrum usage can be problematic.

The government has committed funds to make sure of the necessary project management expertise for creating a workable integrated broadband approach.

The BSG's Walker added: "We don't need a tsar or someone else evangelising. They have good people in their team already but they are simply over-worked."

E-minister Timms pointed out that over 32,000 people and businesses are signing up to broadband every week in the UK right now and more than 70 percent of the population can get a high-speed connection.

On Thursday analyst house Datamonitor forecast that broadband will soon become a mass-market phenomenon across Europe.

Last retreat for BT's prancing piper
23 March 2003, Mail on Sunday

HE BT piper is preparing to blow his last fanfare. The logo, introduced in 1991 in a controversial 50m makeover, is now considered tired, out-of-date and no longer representative of what the telecoms giant does.






Designed by corporate stylists Woolf Olins, the piper was never popular with disgruntled staff, who faxed each other obscene variants.



They were also horrified at the huge sums spent on the logo while BT was in the middle of its first wave of mass redundancies. Critics also pointed out how similar the prancing piper was to a logo used by Royal Insurance's arts sponsorship programme.



But one former BT executive closely involved with the launch said it was 'an image that people grew to love'.


'I didn't like it at the time but it did work quite well,' he said. 'We had to drop the name British Telecom because we could not use it as a trademark in Europe. The piper was good because we could base advertising around it.'


This time round, BT is likely to go for a low-key rebranding launch as it gradually phases out the piper over the three-year lifecycle of BT vans. The logo was updated with slightly different colours in 1999.


'Whatever happens, you won't see the company spending a fortune to repaint everything on the same day,' said a BT spokesman.


Corporate rebranding exercises are now fraught affairs for firms. Changing the Royal Mail's name to Consignia in 2001 was a total flop and last year it became the Royal Mail again. And BA infamously suffered a snub from former Prime Minister Margaret


Thatcher when it dropped the Union flag from its tailfins in favour of ethnic designs.


One BT insider said that at a meeting of 200 senior marketing staff in London before Christmas, 'it was made pretty clear that the image was tired'. He added: 'In 1991, BT was a phone company. It is a different company now.'


A BT spokesman said: 'The logo is under review. No final decision has been taken.'


BT is believed to be looking for pitches from advertising companies. Woolf Olins, which was paid 4 million for the old logo, is unlikely to be in the running. A BT executive said: 'The piper has run out of puff.'

New homes to be primed for broadband
17:47 Monday 24th March 2003
Graeme Wearden


Building regulations could be altered in an attempt to make it easier to install cables in and around new houses
Builders could be forced to make all new homes broadband-friendly by installing cable ducts and chambers into the fabric of the building if government proposals published earlier this month become law.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has presented the building industry with several possible changes to existing regulations. They would, if implemented, help increase broadband take-up by making it much easier for households to install cables in and around their home, and the most far-reaching would cost the building industry an estimated 70m per year.

BT customers get help to watch TV!
Tuesday 25 March 2003, 6:39:58 AM
United Kingdom
Written by Peter Harris
BT Openworld customers no longer have any excuse for missing their favourite television programmes.


The ISP has teamed up with Onthebox.com to offer a text-based TV reminder service. Customers sign up online and click on selected programmes from a wide range of regional, national, cable, satellite and specialist channels - from Anglia to Zee TV. Alerts are then delivered via SMS to their mobile phone 15 minutes, one hour, two hours or six hours before the programme starts.


Customers should go to www.btopenworld.com, to access the service and register their details. Alerts are priced at 25p per text.


Nick Hazell, online director at BT Openworld said: "We aim to provide the best tools for our customers. This particular service is designed to help users take time out of their busy lives to watch the programmes they enjoy. Lets face it, weve all meant to watch our favourite soap or an interesting documentary, but got sidetracked by other things. Now, thanks to a combination of the internet and mobile technologies, theres no excuse."


Stuart Horwood, managing director BT Wholesale markets, who provided the technology, said: "We are delighted to be announcing this SMS service which demonstrates BT Wholesales ability to provide applications for consumer-facing lifestyle products as well as its established infrastructure solutions."


Charles Black, of Onthebox.com, who are supplying the programme listings, said: "Text alerts are a very exciting addition to the Onthebox TV listings as they enable users to get added benefit from the service. Our research and testing of the service have shown that the programme alerts will be very popular. Weve partnered with BT Wholesale to deliver the SMS functionality and are delighted that the service is being launched exclusively on BT Openworld".

BT Wholesale have released details of plans to extend the number of SDSL exchanges from 22 upto 100. This extension is due to be completed by the end of May 2003. With a commercial launch of the service this summer.

We are lead to believe by information passed on by Service Providers involved in the SDSL trials that the rollout will be something like:
14th April: 28 exchanges in Greater London, Greater Manchester and parts of Yorkshire
19th April: 11 exchanges in Greater London
28th April: 17 exchanges in the West Midlands
12th May: 22 exchanges in Scotland

BT Unveils New Speeds
British Telecom, Telewest, begin race
British Telecom today unveiled several upgrades to their DSL offerings that are in the works, including a 1Mbps broadband service to be launched sometime next year, with trials starting this Autumn. The company also announced it would be modifying its "trigger levels" (or how many subscribers are needed near a rural CO to warrant installation), as well as expanding the range for the company's 512Kbps ADSL offering. BT also says its SDSL offerings will be extended from their existing 22 local exchanges to a total of 100 by this May, with a commercial launch of the technology scheduled for this summer. Calling BT a "one trick pony" UK cable provider Telewest announced plans for a new 2MB service the same day.

ZDN - Both the government and BT must do more to help the creation of high-speed wireless networks in the UK if Broadband Britain is to become a reality, MPs said on Tuesday.

Leading a debate on broadband in rural areas, Sir George Young MP criticised the government for not doing enough to close a digital divide which currently means that somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of rural areas have no access to affordable broadband.



According to Sir George, the government has failed thus far to give out full details of how it will deliver broadband to every school, hospital and GP's surgery, as promised by Prime Minister Tony Blair last November.

Many MPs are keen to see this commitment fulfilled in such a way that the wider community also benefits -- perhaps by ADSL-enabling the local exchange or installing a Wi-Fi connection that could be shared by surrounding households in the evenings -- rather than a solution such as using leased lines that wouldn't be shared.

"A bolder and preferable target for the government would be to specify a delivery mechanism for schools which would bring both opportunities for that school, and automatically pull through additional broadband infrastructure to rural areas that might otherwise have to wait a long time for broadband under normal commercial conditions," said Sir George.

Several other MPs backed this point, and two urged e-commerce minister Stephen Timms to make the 2GHz band available to telcos.

"The government has not released the 'sweet spot' 2GHz spectrum," said Sir George, adding that the government had to make a decision between concentrating on making the maximum revenue through spectrum auctions and on making appropriate spectrum available.

Timms did not address this point in his response to the comments raised in the debate, though.

BT has been urging the government to give it access to 2GHz for months -- a request that had been refused, as the spectrum is already used by military and security services. Some experts, though, have indicated that 2GHz is not the best spectrum for broadband and that telcos should look at 3.4GHz, 5.8GHz and even 28GHz.

Although some MPs congratulated BT for its recent broadband initiatives such as its registration scheme and its mini-DSLAMs, the telco did not escape criticism.

Richard Allan MP pointed out that the telco had the power to either help or hinder the work of community activists who are trying to build broadband wireless networks in their area, and suggested that BT should offer an affordable product to link these networks to its backbone.

"We need some imagination from the providers of fixed line networks, who are in a position to encourage or discourage wireless rollout. Wi-Fi groups aren't allowed to feed all their traffic down one ADSL line, so BT could come up with an innovative and helpful contract for these people. It wouldn't have to be free, just competitively priced," suggested Allan.

In his response, Timms agreed that wireless had a key role to play, and suggested that the upgrading of public sector buildings to broadband could help bring down the cost of connecting Wi-Fi networks to the Internet.

"The solution isn't that government provides subsidies for broadband. Instead, it's the public sector's role as a customer that is so important. We need to maximise that demand, and ensure that it is used to bring broadband to local communities," Timms told the assembled MPs.

Timms added that he had recently visited a company called Rutland Online that is setting up a Wi-Fi network which had told him that 50,000 of their projected 90,000 spending over two years was made up of network backhaul costs. By upgrading building such as schools to broadband, the government might help to bring this cost down by helping to create more infrastructure, Timms suggested.

BT has offered thousands of its workers a 3.8 per cent pay rise.

The Communication Workers Union has recommended that its members accept the deal, which will benefit around 80,000 workers, ranging from operators to engineers.

A ballot of workers will start next week and the result will be announced mid-April.

A BT spokesman said: We believe it is an offer which acknowledges the contribution of our employees.

By Quentin Reade

BT to trial 1Mbps ADSL
By Tim Richardson
Posted: 25/03/2003 at 15:10 GMT


BT is to trial a new home-based 1Mbps ADSL service in the autumn which, if successful, could be rolled-out as a full commercial service before the end of the year.

News of BT's decision to provide a 1Mbps service comes on the same day that Telewest said it plans to trial a 2Mbps service for its consumers ahead of a full launch later this year.

BT Wholesale also confirmed that it now has more than 750,000 ADSL-connected end users and - despite some doubts - is on target to hit one million broadband punters by the summer.

In a raft of announcements made today, BT Wholesale claims that it is listening to its customers (ie. ISPs) and is working to offer new services.

Many of today's announcements are merely teasers for trials and pilots for later in the year and in some cases full details, such as pricing and spec, have yet to be finalised. However, today's announcements give an idea of BT's progress on broadband.

For example, as well as trialling a 1Mbps service for the home, BT Wholesale is also to test an entry-level 256Kbps product in the autumn. However, there are indications that BT does not regard this as being a true "broadband" service and is unlikely to market it as such, even though this will be an ADSL product.
Prices and other details surrounding both the 256Kbps and 1Mbps services are expected to be announced in the summer.

BT is also planning to extend the reach of its ADSL service which it claims will mean that an extra 600,000 households in DSL-enabled areas should be able to hook up to broadband. The reason why they can't lies in the fact that BT's 512Kbps ADSL service is only effective up to a range of around 5.5km from the exchange. Beyond that, and the line can suffer a reduction in signal strength leading to a duff service.

However, the telco now reckons it can effectively extend the range to 6km and still maintain a decent line quality to provide a 512Kbps ADSL service. The predictions are that 97 per cent of those connected to ADSL-enabled exchanges will now be within reach when this new initiative finally goes live sometime in June.

On a similar note, BT is also mulling whether to introduce a "simple fix" that would mean people connected to their local exchange via optical fibre (which doesn't support ADSL) - rather than copper - should be able to get broadband. Once again, more details of this are expected to be published next month will a full service launch pencilled in for June.

Providing an update on its broadband demand registration scheme, BT reports that so far 300,000 people from non-DSL areas have registered their interest in ADSL. So far 35 exchanges have been upgraded as a direct result of the scheme with a further 206 in the process of being upgraded by BT.

By next Monday, BT expects to publish triggers for a further 102 exchanges where demand has been strong but which have so far not been given thresholds.

Finally, BT is also expanding trials of its SDSL service from the current 22 exchanges to 100, with a view to launching the service commercially in August this year.

155 now.......new lows coming or a bounce from previous lows around 1.45?

Clearly they will move with the market and the sector ..... not sure that should move with the war news ..... but that's the market

This looks good


LONDON (Reuters) - BT Group has said it will cut prices on evening and weekend phone calls in the UK, making some charges up to 20 times cheaper than those of its main rivals.
BT Together customers will pay six pence for up to an hour on all evening and weekend calls made in the UK, BT BT.L said in a statement. The BT Together scheeme will see the end of per-minute charging for all evening and weekend calls with one rate for UK and local calls.