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

A couple of interesting items from the S Times ..... should help the bottom line in near future




February 16, 2003

BT reconnects with mobile users
Paul Durman



ONLY 15 months after the demerger of its MMO2 mobile-phone business, BT Group is planning a serious assault on the consumer mobile market.
The telecoms giant is working towards a summer launch of a new operation to attract large numbers of mobile-phone users. It is expected that BT will seek to offer a package of fixed and mobile telephony, including text messaging from fixed phones.

BT will tomorrow announce a deal with the British arm of T-Mobile, which will provide the necessary network capacity. T-Mobiles network already carries calls for Virgin Mobile, which it co-owns.

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, said: I think theres an emerging market in convergence, with people having fixed and mobile lines and wanting unified services.

Harris Jones, the departing head of T-Mobile UK, said: Its very clear that BT is very aggressive about re-entering the mobile space.

He suggested the new BT initiative would be seeking millions of customers. Increasing competition and loss of traffic to mobile phones has put BT under pressure to find new sources of revenue.

BT is already a large mobile service provider to businesses, buying network capacity from MMO2, its former subsidiary.




February 16, 2003 Extracts only

Broadband shines amid the telecoms gloom
The number of homes and firms with high-speed internet access is 1.5m and rising, says Paul Durman



THE gloom in the telecoms industry often seems unremitting. A savage decline in prices and confidence has pushed many companies into financial ruin, and wrecked the hopes of most of those that survive.

It is somehow fitting that 3, aka Hutchison 3G, the company blazing the trail for 3G in Europe, will not be exhibiting at Cannes: it is still tinkering with the software that powers the video phones it hopes to launch next month.

Yet look beyond the gloom and there is a revolution going on. Internet usage continues to grow apace and, in Britain, as in much of the developed world, there is increasingly widespread adoption of broadband high-speed connections that open up new possibilities for entertainment and business use.

Keith Woolcock, an analyst with Nomura International. Theres something big happening, and its called broadband, he says.

Last week BT announced that it is signing up 25,000 customers a week for its broadband service. Including those who use AOL, Freeserve and other access providers, BT now claims 650,000 broadband subscribers, each of them paying at least 27 a month, and is well on course to hit its target of 1m by this summer.

The cable-television companies, NTL and Telewest, also offer broadband, although a different variety known as cable modem. Between them, the cable companies have about 800,000 broadband customers. After a slow start, Britain now has nearly 1.5m homes and small businesses with broadband facilities.

Browsing websites using a broadband connection is a much quicker and more pleasant experience than with a traditional dial-up connection. It is less frustrating, and users are inclined to spend more time on the internet.

Gavin Patterson, managing director of Telewests consumer division, says: People are just doing more of what they did before. Time online is about four times what it was in the dial-up world. Some people are spending more time online than theyre spending on TV. Theres more chat, theres more e-mailing, more photography, more web-browsing. And it is made for the adult market.

The 10 most popular websites among Telewests Blueyonder broadband customers include seven that offer adult entertainment.


At the most basic level, broadband enables you to e-mail large documents that were simply too big to send over a dial-up connection. This potentially allows more people to work from home, saving on transport and congestion costs.

Even more exciting, broadband believers claim the technology will transform the role of the computer, pushing it into the space previously occupied by the television and the hi-fi system.

Early subscribers are already using broadband to exchange music files an illegal phenomenon embraced by tens of millions of users that has caused the collapse of the American singles market.

Patterson says broadband could finally make video-on- demand a reality. Instead of just watching whats on television, viewers could search the web for the particular programme or film that they wished to see perhaps a favourite show broadcast years ago, that someone has digitised and stored on a computer. Patterson says: There are great opportunities for broadband, both in breadth of content and in depth.

Computer games are another big driver of broadband take-up. Faster data flow allows gamers to play their friends in other cities, or even other countries. And in the near future, a simultaneous voice connection will allow gaming rivals to taunt and jeer one another.

BT and the cable companies are looking forward to the British launch next month of Microsofts Xbox Live, which will allow gamers to use their consoles to play games online without having to buy them.

Woolcock argues that the huge corporate investment in technology over the past decade and more was spurred on by the spread of network computing. With many companies now reining back expenditure, he says the real opportunity for broadband lies in the consumer market.

Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, is not so sure of the extent of consumer demand for broadband.

He is confident that BT can reach 1m or perhaps 2m customers, but he points out that most of these are already heavy internet users. These people, who spend a large amount each month for their internet usage, can easily be persuaded to spend a little more for a much better product, he believes.

Danon says it will be much harder to convert the occasional internet user, who goes online only to do some shopping or to send e-mail. If you spend just 5 a month for your rarely used dial-up connection, why would you spend 27 a month for broadband? Danon says a target of around 5m is not completely stupid, but it is very difficult. I believe the No 1 battle is the battle (to offer) value-added services.

One example is BTs recent partnership with Yahoo, which will provide junk e-mail controls, instant messaging, parental controls, digital photo storage and anti-virus software.

He also speaks highly of a deal with Pixology, a digital- printing firm that will provide cheap prints of digital photos.

In addition, BT is championing the British introduction of so-called wi-fi, a short-range wireless technology that offers much faster data speeds than 3G. Although wi-fi is not truly a mobile technology, the cheap base stations required will allow a roll-out to hotels, coffee shops, airports and train stations where businessmen might stop to check e-mail on their laptops.

Royal Bank to call in BT Group
16 February 2003, Mail on Sunday

PHONES giant BT has clinched a deal, thought to be worth at least 500 million, to run the telecoms systems at Royal Bank of Scotland. The contract is likely to be announced this week and will see the company take over the running of all telecoms systems at RBS for about 50 million a year for the next ten years.

BT ratings to stand despite pensions gap FT

Ainsoph: if you're going to paste all this stuff, I really think you should say where you are cutting it from. Unattributed articles are not of much value.

The key facts about the pension fund seem to me to be contained in this snippet from today's FT article:

"Analysts at UBS Warburg estimate BT's FRS 17 pension deficit to be close to 9.5bn - the high end of estimates - and on that basis this would push BT's lease-adjusted debt obligations from 13.4bn to 22.9bn. BT has one of the largest UK pension funds, with assets of 27bn as of last March."

UBSW's estimate may be at the high end, but if the fund has assets of 27bn a deficit of 9.5bn seems quite plausible, with the equity market down almost 50% (and bearing in mind that the equity portion of the BT fund will almost certainly have underperformed the market).

9bn is more than half of BT's market capitalisation. Even without taking this into account, BT has negative shareholders' funds. This may be another great British disaster in the making.

I thought I had attributed the articles - FT on post 59 - MAS on previous post and ST on post 57.

A lot of peeps have made estimates of the possible shortfall and these are very wide ranging .... BT are comfortable with the situation and happy to pay out of income. As and when the market turns - BT shares will gain double.

Why do you assume 'the equity portion of the BT fund will almost certainly have underperformed the market' ....... perhaps you can give the reasons why you think this to be true.

There are some negative comments doing the rounds and I note my trade is around evens - maybe I will add a few more. Just a ST blip imho


ains


18 February
UBS Warburg has downgraded BT Group to 'reduce' from 'neutral', dropping its share price target to 154p from 180p. Schroder Salomon Smith Barney cut its price target to 200p from 220p.

Hmmmmmm ..... No US market today - will look to add before the market closes - personally happy with the situation on pensions - 166p offer at this time - volumes are averaage

ains



02/17 11:34
BT Group Cut to `Reduce 1' at UBS Warburg(Correct) :BT/A LN
By Jonathan Chambers


(Corrects Price target in body of story)

London, Feb. 17 (Bloomberg Data) -- BT Group PLC (BT/A LN) was downgraded to ``reduce 1'' from ``neutral 1'' by analyst Patrick Foulis at UBS Warburg. The analyst cut the price target on the stock to 154 pence per share from 180 pence previously.

BT gets clearance for consumer wireless expansion

London, February 17 2003, (netimperative)



by Richard Agnew

BT has confirmed it is to aggressively expand its activity in the consumer wireless sector this summer, little over a year after spinning off its in-house mobile arm O2.


The move will see O2 rival T-Mobile replacing it as the supplier of network capacity for BT's consumer offering Mobile Sense, which the telco aims to expand and generate the main part of the 44m in revenue it has targeted for such activities by 2004/05.

Although BT would not give out specific details of the services it would offer, the move is expected to see it bundle fixed and mobile services for consumers on one bill and promoting services such as text messaging from landline phones. A spokesperson for the company confirmed it had received clearance from telecoms regulator Oftel to press ahead with the new expansion.

T-Mobile is believed to have undercut O2 to supply BT with access to its network. It already allows virtual operator Virgin Mobile to piggyback on its network, and UK CEO Harris Jones said the deal would "accelerate our growth further".

BT signalled its intent to take on the UK mobile operators with the low-key launch of its online service Mobile Sense in October.

The move saw BT offering consumers the chance to build their monthly pricing plans and pay their bills online via the bt.com website, but a BT spokesperson said the service was just a "first step" back into the market. He said the company planned to start targeting consumers offline and offering unified services to its massive residential telephony customer base.

BT Retail consumer MD Angus Porter said: "From this summer, we will be able to offer excellent mobile packages to our customers in the consumer market. Our aim at BT is to connect our customers' worlds completely, and obviously a strong mobile offering is a vital link in that chain.

The new service's launch also forms part of a gradual build-up of BT's activity in the mobile market after spinning off its in-house operator O2 at the end of 2001.

Through mobile business services run through O2 and its wireless LAN (local area network) business Openzone, the company is looking to capture 12% to 15% of the corporate wireless market by 2006/7.

BT is contractually obliged to use O2 for its corporate mobile service for the three years after the firm's demerger, but ongoing rumours have linked it to deals with other operators in the consumer sector since the business service was launched.

more downgrades...u slagged me for saying downgrades would follow the results !!

I said the brokers had mostly already updated .... BT have now stabilised and moving up a tad ..... generates a buying opportunity which is good and my guess is the price hasn't moved any since your last post :-))



ains

you said the brokers had already made their comments. suppose your making lots of dosh longing BT around these prices ? What did u do with the shars you bought in the 1.70's u mentioned ?

I haven't sold any in the last day or two ..... tending to swing trade rather than intraday on these and at the moment happy to accumulate a few


ains

I'd buy mid 1.50's and short around 1.85.just watching developments.

We will see ..... market will soon forget and there will be positive notes out soon - US being closed doesn't help any


ains


17 Feb 2003 14:10 GMT

UPDATE 1-BT to make new consumer wireless bid with T-Mobile

(adds detail, background)
LONDON, Feb 17 (Reuters) - BT Group Plc BT.L , Britain's largest fixed-line telecoms provider, stepped further away from its mobile offspring on Monday when it announced a deal with one of mmO2's OOM.L rivals in a renewed bid for mobile consumers.

BT will be able to offer a bundled fixed and wireless phone service by reselling time on Deutsche Telekom AG's DTEGn.DE T-Mobile [TMOG.UL] network, just over a year after the British company sold its mobile arm mmO2 Plc in order to reduce debt.

"From this summer, we will be able to offer excellent mobile packages to our customers in the consumer market," Angus Porter, managing director of BT Retail's consumer division, said. More details would be released closer to the launch, he added.

BT, which resells O2's mobile services to its business customers, had already launched a consumer mobile product with O2 called "Mobile Sense" last October.

Mobile Sense, which BT had primarily targeted at the two million users of its Web site, would carry on until the launch of its new service, a BT Retail spokesman said

"What we're talking about with T-Mobile is a much broader variety of packages," he said.

BT has said before it aims to earn 44 million pounds ($70 million) a year in revenue from consumer mobile and other services by 2005. It jumped back into the corporate wireless market in April last year, hoping to add 500 million pounds in revenue by 2007.

Though BT can enjoy the benefits of mobile earnings without the risk and high cost of network ownership, some analysts wonder how much money can be earned out of reselling agreements.

Virgin Mobile, a British joint venture between entrepreneur Richard Branson's Virgin Group [VA.UL] and T-Mobile, has enjoyed success in its first three years, picking up almost 2.4 million subscribers and turning an underlying profit last year.

I will buy these @150 ish looks on the cards as pension is going to be a big burden and with no signs of any improvement in the short term ,If you look around the market place it does not forget easily and bt is a ideal shorting share for the moment they are placing a lot of faith in broadband but on the other hand are theatening to limit data downloads which goes against the whole idea of the ordinary person having broad band in the first place especialy as they advertise downloading music/films etc, take that away and there is no reason for the home user to pay 20+ a month

BT Group and Swisscom AG were active in opening deals after both issues were downgraded in a UBS Warburg review of the fixed-line telecoms sector, dealers said.

BT was moved to 'reduce' from 'neutral' by the broker, on a target price lowered to 154 pence from 180.

Swisscom was moved to 'neutral' from 'buy', with its target cut to 450 skr from 475. Elsewhere in the UBS research, Deutsche Telekom AG and France Telecom were both kept at 'reduce'.

TeliaSonera AB was upgraded to 'buy' from 'neutral', with its target price raised to 10.3 eur from 8.8. KPN NV Royal, OTE, TDC AS, Telekom Austria, Telenor ASA and Portugal Telecom were reiterated at 'neutral'. Telefonica had its 'reduce' recommendation repeated.

UBS told clients it sees the fixed-line telecoms operators at a crossroads. Sales newsflow has been weak, but cost base reductions have led to upgrades to free cash flow and consequently to share prices, it said. With the sector now valued at a 5% premium to the wider market, UBS mulled whether upgrades would come from further cost-cutting, or whether revenue growth will be the ultimate driver of cash-flow growth. The broker concluded that top-line growth will ultimately be the key driver while further cost-cutting could be hard to achieve. This led it to remain cautious on the sector. Shareholders should not assume they will see 100% of cost-cutting benefits to perpetuity, given high implied post-tax return on invested capital of 20 pct, UBS thought. It was also concerned by the top-line effect of fixed to mobile substitution, wireless termination rate cuts, regulation and overcapacity. The expected squeeze on near-term cashflows led UBS to lower wireline valuations by an average of 7%. Telecom Italia was named as UBS's preferred pick, while TeliaSonera was highlighted as "the cheapest way to play potential restructuring".

Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom were considered more leveraged plays, while BT was downgraded because of its leverage into wireline fundamentals.

talk of the Royal Bank of Scotland being close to announcing a renewed contract with BT to manage all of its telecoms systems.

The long-term agreement is still to be signed, but it could be worth around 65 million per annum to BT.




ains

Just a reminder that from yesterday anybody subscribing to BTs BT 'No Frills' Broadband ADSL service will gain two months of free digital music downloads via the operators Dotmusic portal.

The offer is valid until 31st March 2003 and lets you download up to 100 free music tracks from a collection of over 120,000. The standard subscription of 4.99 per month will be reinstated for April.

Fixed wireless broadband too pricey for ISPs
By Dinah Greek [18-02-2003]

Smaller service providers lack resources to roll out more services, says analyst
Few internet service providers (ISPs) have the enthusiasm or cash to roll out further residential wireless broadband services, according to analyst Ovum.
Even the lure of a low reserve price for the 3.4GHz wavelength, previously used for telephony services, may not be enough to tempt many smaller independent ISPs.

And rather than use the frequency to roll out broadband access to consumers, as the government hopes, larger telecoms operators could take advantage of the removal of many restrictions to snap up the licences while continuing to use the frequency as extra bandwidth for their existing services.

"In the financial climate who has got the hunger left to deploy new networks? This means fixed wireless is still struggling to sell," said Michael Philpott, a broadband market analyst with Ovum.

The most likely outcome could be that licences are sold to major players such as BT, according to Philpott.

"They could buy the spectrum and create more than one source of revenue for themselves by offering both retail and wholesale services."

On paper the 3.4GHz spectrum is perfect for broadband deployment to rural areas where cable and Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line (ADSL) is too expensive to roll out.

It has a similar bandwidth offering to DSL but with a greater reach, and the equipment is cheaper to install than for higher frequency wireless spectrums.

But the main drawback of fixed wireless access is the cost to the ISP and the consumer. Economies of scale mean that ADSL prices are dropping all the time, whereas fixed wireless asset prices are largely standing still.

Dave Thorpe, operations manager for business-to-business ISP Internet Central, based in Norfolk, said: "Investment costs to ISPs for fixed wireless services are enormous.

"There is the investment in hardware that is needed and the bandwidth has to come from somewhere. This usually means linking to a local BT exchange.

"We charge businesses 750 for installation, then 350 per month for a 2Mbps leased line. We couldn't charge this to residential customers so would never get the cost of investment back."

But the Radiocommunications Agency and the Department of Trade and Industry have had a difficult job pitching the licences at the right price, argued Rob Mortimer at wireless DSL equipment vendor Alvarion.

Removing restrictions that would force operators to provide broadband access would not necessarily backfire, he said.

"While companies such as Vodafone and Orange could be interested in the 3.4GHz spectrum for backhaul services, there is a lot of interest from rural ISPs to provide broadband services."

By Tim Richardson
Posted: 18/02/2003 at 12:25 GMT


BT may fall short of reaching its target of one million broadband customers by the end of June, according to a report just published.

Enders Analysis reports that the wholesale take-up of BT's DSL service is currently growing at an "exceptional" pace and that this would have to be sustained until the summer for BT to meet its target.

During January, the report says BT Wholesale connected 70,000 ADSL lines, compared to an average of 50,000 a month during Q3 2002.

This is disputed by BT Wholesale, which said that in January more than 80,000 DSL lines were connected. It also claims that connection rates are accelerating with 25,000 connected in the first week of February alone.

As long as these levels of take-up are sustained then BT looks set to hit its target. A spokesman for BT Wholesale said the telco remains "absolutely confident" that it will do so.

But Enders Analysis isn't so sure, which is why it is taking a more cautious approach, suggesting that it would be "touch-and-go" whether BT Wholesale hits its million mark.

Of course, whether BT misses its target by a few weeks is not really of any great consequence. The important thing is that with more than 650,000 DSL connections in the UK, broadband is beginning to make its mark. But at what cost?

According to the report, BT has been forced to rethink its broadband strategy following the "disappointing" take-up of its much-hyped, no-frills, access-only BT Broadband service.

When it was launched last year some analysts predicted that this access-only product could sign the death warrant for traditional service and content-included ISPs.

But with only 100,000-plus customers so far and millions spent on promoting the product, BT is still way-off the tough 500,000 target it set itself for the end of June.

Publicly, BT is still optimistic that it will hit this target, something challenged by Enders Analysis.

Perhaps more interesting, though, is the fact that BT Broadband's failure to catch on as hoped has breathed new life into the telco's ISP, BT Openworld, which was effectively kicked into the long-grass last year.

Now it seems BT is ready to spend cash on it once again in a bid to increase numbers and help it reach the million.

Tuesday 18th February 2003


Broadband UK Internet connections reach one in ten
[Computer Buyer] 12:32

The Office of National Statistics has covered the month of December 2002 in its latest monthly report on UK Internet connectivity.
The headline figure is that the total number of subscriptions for access to the Internet actually fell - month on month - by 1.1 per cent. This is attributed to seasonal factors involving the Christmas holiday. On a yearly basis, however, Internet connectivity grew 7.4 per cent compared with December 2001.

Of more interest is the statistic that 10.1 per cent of subscriptions to the Internet now involve fast dedicated access (broadband or fixed lines). The Office of National Statistics reports that the yearly growth for permanent connections was 262.7 per cent, with an increase of 7.3 per cent from November to December 2002.

By contrast, the relative decline of dial-up connections - which include ISDN - has continued. The figure for December 2002 stands at 89.9 per cent, down from the 97 per cent of all subscriptions in December 2001.

Make no mistake, however - this is not to say that one in ten people now enjoy broadband. The official figures relate to the nature of Internet subscriptions. Nevertheless, the stats provide a useful and consistent indication of the take up of broadband.

Alun Williams