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 new product called "bread" has hit the streets. Get some fast.

edit: would never have known about BT if I hadn't seen ainsoph's post! Thanks ainsoph, where HAVE they being hiding this one ;-)

FORTUNE TELLER

GUY DIXON


SEVERAL of the biggest names on the London market will test investor confidence this week, with results due from the likes of BT, BP, GlaxoSmithKline and the first of the big players from the banking sector.


Telecoms group BT will be under pressure on Thursday to show it can get somewhere near the ambitious targets set in April of 6% to 8% revenues growth over the following three years.

In BTs last update in November, revenues edged ahead 2% in the six months to September 30 and analysts are not expecting spectacular figures this time around.

The market is likely to be looking for third-quarter pre-tax profits of 423m, up from 381m last time, as well as an encouraging update on the take-up of BTs much-heralded broadband offering.

BT Q3 profit seen up
By Braden Reddall, UK telecoms correspondent


LONDON (Reuters) - BT (LSE: BT.L - news - msgs) is expected to report a rise in third-quarter earnings this Thursday, under a cloud of worries about growing competitive threats and the state of its pension fund in a slumping equity ADVERTISEMENT

market.


Ben Verwaayen had barely settled in to his new London office overlooking St. Paul's Cathedral when the new BT chief executive had to preside over the last set of third-quarter results.


The country's dominant telecom group had just suffered months of major upheaval, selling businesses as well as a record-breaking tranche of shares to cut a 30 billion-pound debt mountain by more than half.


Verwaayen, whose arrival was seen as the start of better times, had little specific to offer at last year's third-quarter results. But his plan for "substantially" cheaper high-speed Internet access would set the tone for BT's year.


Analysts do not expect next week's third-quarter results to prove momentous. But Verwaayen, as head of a business focused mostly on the less exciting but steadier UK domestic market, will be under pressure to deliver signs of growth in both earnings and the number of broadband Internet users.


"If boring and steady means it is on track to meet its targets, then that is a good thing," said David Brundish, telecoms analyst at JP Morgan (NYSE: JPM_pj - news) .


Verwaayen promised last April to deliver compound annual growth of 25 percent in earnings per share (EPS) and six to eight percent growth in revenue in the three years to 2005. However, he had to abandon the latter target three months ago when it became clear it may prove too ambitious.


Analysts expect revenue for the quarter to December of between 4.76 billion and 4.83 billion pounds, representing at the high-end growth of less than four percent over the third quarter last year.


Forecasts for earnings per share range from 3.5 pence to 4.0 pence, up from 2.4p last year, thanks to cost cutting and its debt reduction drive, which helped lower interest payments. Pre-tax profit estimates range from 460 million to 530 million pounds, compared with 381 million a year ago.


HOW MUCH NEED FOR SPEED?


BT slashed the wholesale price of broadband in half last April to less than 15 pounds per month, as part of a goal to have one million broadband customers on its network by mid-2003 and somewhere around five million by 2006.


Pierre Danon, chief executive of BT Retail, said on Friday that more than 100,000 broadband users had signed up to BT's network in January, putting the total at well over half a million.


But with cable rivals NTL (NYSE: NLI - news) and Telewest (LSE: TWT.L - news) clawing their way out of financial crisis, BT has formidable competition for broadband access. NTL and Telewest, though their networks pass by just over half of Britain's homes, boast more than three quarters of a million broadband users in total.


BT's traditional market for voice calls is also under threat from two strong retail players: number one UK supermarket Tesco (LSE: TSCO.L - news - msgs) and Europe's largest mobile phone retailer Carphone Warehouse (LSE: CPW.L - news) . Both recently announced plans to sell home phone services as well.


Furthermore, analysts have wondered for months how much BT will have to contribute to its pension fund to make up for stock market losses. Opinion is divided on the potential impact, but they agree that the uncertainty is weighing on the shares.


"Apart from exceptional Q3 results, the positive trigger towards our target price is more likely to come when the latest valuation of BT's pension deficit is published in May," SG Securities analyst Steve Trowbridge said of his 230p target.


BT shares were up two percent at 177 1/2 pence on Friday afternoon. The stock has lost about a fifth of its value over the past 12 months, but outperformed European peers in the DJ Stoxx European telecoms index by five percent in that time.

BT poised to soothe pension worries
By Robert Budden, Telecommunications Correspondent
Published: February 10 2003 4:00 | Last Updated: February 10 2003 4:00

BT Group will seek this week to allay investor concerns over its mounting pensions deficit when it unveils third-quarter results on Thursday.


Investors are worried that the telecommunications operator's growing pension shortfall could force it to radically accelerate how much money it injects into its pension scheme.

BT is currently committed to pay 200m a year into its pension to make up its shortfall which, at the end of 2001, was calculated at 1.6bn. However, following sharp falls in stock markets, many analysts are predicting this deficit will now have risen considerably.

With a relatively high exposure to equities - 67 per cent of the group's final salary pension scheme is invested in stocks and shares - the scheme is particularly vulnerable to market fluctuations.

But Ian Livingston, finance director, will indicate this week that it is still far too early to gauge whether BT will be required to increase its regular payments into the scheme.

Companies that run final salary pension schemes are forced to conduct a formal actuarial valuation of their scheme every three years. BT is now in the middle of a full formal valuation of its pension scheme, the results of which will be released in May.

On the basis of these findings, the company will then engage in discussions with the trustees of its pension scheme to decide whether higher cash injections are required.

This issue is particularly important for BT as its final salary scheme is one of the largest in the UK with more than 376,000 members and assets of 27bn.

The decisions facing BT are similar to those facing a whole myriad of UK companies. Given the volatility of stock markets and rising life expectancy, final salary pension schemes are too big a liability for some companies, with growing numbers choosing to shut them down to new entrants.

BT has already shut down its final salary scheme to new entrants, although there are no suggestions that it could take the far more dramatic step of closing the scheme to existing employees.

from the herald - week ahead

BT

The telecoms group will be under pressure on Thursday to show it can get somewhere near the ambitious targets set in April of 6% to 8% revenues growth over the following three years.

In BT's last update in November, revenues edged ahead 2% in the six months to September 30 and analysts are not expecting spectacular figures this time around, with a focus on cost controls likely to be of major concern.

The market is likely to be looking for third-quarter pre-tax profits of 423m, up from 381m last time, as well as an encouraging update on the take-up of BT's much-heralded broadband offering.

Online farmers are reaping the rewards
By Robert Uhlig, Farming Correspondent
(Filed: 11/02/2003)


Farmers are turning to the internet in increasing numbers to challenge the domination of the supermarkets. More than 300 million worth of farm produce was sold online last year.

Farm trade on the internet was unheard of five years ago, but last year one in 10 of Britain's 300,000 farms marketed produce on the internet, generating sales of 325 million, according to a study by the National Farmers' Union. The study scotched the image of farmers as often isolated and out of touch, relying on visits to local markets to catch up on news.

Nowadays, more than eight out of 10 farmers are connected to the internet, using it primarily for information, research, banking and news.

Growth in internet use grinds to a halt
By Robert Uhlig telegraph
(Filed: 10/02/2003)


The growth in internet use is grinding to a halt, according to research by Oftel, the telecoms watchdog.

It found that despite a huge take-up of high-speed broadband services, demand has levelled off now that half the population is online.

Last year, both dial-up and broadband net access from home remained static at about 42 per cent of the population in Britain, according to Oftel.

Hoping that the figure will rise, the Government will begin campaign in May to persuade people to connect to the internet. National television advertisements and direct mailing will be targeted at the over-55s, women and ethnic minorities - the groups that are currently under represented on the internet.

However, according to Jupiter Research, the independent analysts, there is little room for growth. It predicts that the number of internet users will continue to grow slowly to about 51 per cent of the population in 2007.

Ministers have been studying countries such as South Korea, where six out of 10 people have broadband connections at home, to determine why internet usage is slowing in Britain.

A team from Brunel University found that new approaches were needed for broadband services to appeal to the half of the population yet to go online. In Korea, broadband is targeted at mothers, stressing the value of broadband services to, for example, education.

The researchers from Brunel University concluded that internet service providers needed to make broadband a critical utility similar to electricity, instead of regarding it as a desirable luxury.

Outperforming the market and the sector this morning - nas has reversed and is now marginally positive

seems like NTL have shot themselves in the foot :-))


ains


NTL wakes up to broadband PR catastrophe

Unlimited "is a trade name"

By Mike Magee: Monday 10 February 2003, 11:35


SUITS AT NTL woke up this morning to find they had a PR nightmare on their hands and have apologised for the "poor communications" that generated the furore, which broke over the weekend.
Aizad Hussain, managing director of NTL:Home, apologised for "poor communication" of its new policy limiting its broadband connections to 1GB downloads a day.

He has written a little letter in which he claims NTL will be "very flexible" about the download limits, but claimed some customers had confused gigabyte limits with kilobit speeds.

One of the problems is that NTL advertised an unlimited service, and customers were up in arms about this. Hussain now defines this as having a "trade name" unlimited and he says its broadband service is no longer called unlimited.

He said the intention of NTL was only to limit very frequent or persistent "heavy network use" that would affect other customers. Now NTL will only contact customers who exceed the daily data limit for three or more days in a consecutive 14-day (fortnight) period, he said.

One telling line in the statement is that the new Ts&Cs will not affect gaming applications at all this is of particular interest because as we reported last month, NTL has a deal with Xbox Online here in Blighty, aimed ot undercut BT Openworld.

One gigabyte of data a day, he said, is equal to 100 large software programs, 200 music tracks, 650 short videos, 10,000 pictures and 20,000 web pages.

Customers won't be disconnected but will be advised to moderate their limits.

Triple figure growth in European online sales - Visa EU




10 February 2003 - Consumer confidence in the Internet remains buoyant with total EU e-commerce sales for the last quarter of 2002 up by 136% compared to the same period in 2001, according to data from Visa EU.

The card organisation says over the last three months of 2002 European Web sites sold over 2.5 billion to Visa cardholders online, with over 31 million transactions processed in total.

Recent strong quarterly growth has helped sustain the increase with online transactions in the last quarter up by 40% compared to the previous three months. Sales volumes also increased, with the amount spent online up by a third (33%) in the latter half of last year.

NTL seeks to clarify 1GB/day broadband cap
By Tim Richardson
Posted: 10/02/2003 at 12:42 GMT


NTL has been stunned by the outcry from its broadband customers over the cableco's decision to cap usage of its broadband service to 1 gigabyte a day.

The announcement was sneaked out on Friday but caused such an uproar that senior execs have been forced to step in and clarify the cableco's position.

A protest site set up on Friday calling for customers not to pay their NTL bills until the matter is resolved, has already received more than 30,000 hits and 100s of emails from angry users.

In a poll of 760 punters on the cableco's own pet nthellworld.com site, half said they planned to ditch NTL and find another broadband provider because of the cap.

Others argue the cap defeats the whole reason for having broadband and are looking at ways to get NTL to overturn its decision.

However, in an open letter on nthellworld.com, ntl:home MD, Mr Hussain admitted that the cap was "poorly communicated" but insisted that it would stay.

In a Q&A the company said: "Our objective is only to limit very frequent or persistent heavy network use that can impact other customers. Therefore we will ONLY contact customers who exceed the daily data limit for three or more days in any consecutive 14-day period.

"If you occasionally exceed your data limit, it will not be a problem. Remember our goal is to give freedom and easy usage to our customers. This rule ensures that you have peace of mind and that we are able to reduce the unfair prolonged usage by a small number."

Indeed, NTL insists that the limit has been imposed more as a guideline. It is not trying to penalise "ordinary" users. Instead, it wants to target persistent abusers of its broadband service, many of whom, its believed, are running businesses on what the cableco insists is a domestic service.

It's still too early to say whether NTL has managed to appease its hacked-off punters.

oftel provisional order announced

Mon 10 February 2003 12:57PM GMT

BT scoops 140m Bradford & Bingley deal
Mortgage provider thinks long-term



Bradford & Bingley has awarded BT a 10-year, 140m outsourcing contract, covering a wide range of technologies and business services.


Over 550 Bradford & Bingley (B&B) sites will be connected across the UK via local and wide area networks, with a focus on collaboration tools, hosting and security.



The bank has opted for Lotus Notes-based email managed and hosted by the telco, which is a major partner of Microsoft, a competing provider of groupware.


Other key parts of the deal include disaster recovery services, security - encompassing firewall management, intrusion detection and virus scanning - remote connectivity for over 1,000 independent financial advisors, and web hosting for online financial services.


B&B has had an outsourcing relationship with BT since 1998 and said the larger contract is helping it reduce its supplier base and receive better service.

Tony Hallett

Oftel Pushes For Wholesale Midband

By:mark.j @ 2:38:PM - News Comments - SendNews [HERE] / PrintNews [HERE]Oftel, the UK telecoms regulator, is rumoured to be planning a wholesale push for BTs forthcoming Midband ISDN service.

Many of you may remember BTs original announcement from late last year, in which the Midband service was touted as a possible semi-solution to the lack of broadband access in rural areas.

Apparently Oftel is unwilling to allow BT to monopolise the midband market and is planning for a wholesale push. Midband itself has come in for a lot of controversy, with many describing it as a distraction from the real problems of broadband coverage:

Midband, which was announced by BT Retail chief executive Pierre Danon at last November's e-Summit, will give data rates of up to 128Kbps, and although it does not give a constant Web connection, it will provide always-on email.

Trials of Midband are due to start within weeks, but a commercial launch date has not been released by BT.

ZDNet UK understands that some senior figures within Oftel are determined that BT should not be the only midband retailer and that BT Wholesale must make the technology available to other Internet service providers on the same terms as it does to BT Retail.

A decision isn't expected to be made for awhile yet, although BT isn't completely opposed to the idea. Unfortunately Midband is likely to remain controversial until such a time as full and final details are announced. More @ ZDNet.

LONDON (AFX) - Internet service providers will for the first time have to pay a fee to fund the telecommunications industry regulator Oftel.
Currently, only telecom operators have to make up the watchdog's day-to-day running costs.

But under new EU regulations to be introduced on July 25, all ISPs and other electronic communication companies with an annual turnover above 5 mln stg will have to pay towards the cost of regulation, which will total 19.5 mln stg this year.

Under the plans, companies will have to pay a fee equal to 0.063 pct of their annual sales, a spokesperson for Oftel said.

Oftel will later this year be folded into a new super-regulator -- Ofcom -- which will be responsible for both the telecoms and media sector.

Guardian

down BT


Telecoms regulator Oftel clamped down yesterday on BT for offering an unfair discount to a company which was close to defecting to a rival firm.

Vanco, which provides communications services to large corporations, was in the final stages of securing a multi-million pound, multi-year contract with IBM, a BT customer. When BT learned of the Vanco contract, it introduced a six-figure discount through RHM, a telecoms reseller.

Oftel yesterday ruled that BT had breached its licence, which demands that the company make offers available to all customers. It is the first time the regulator has found that the company ftried to undercut rivals.

BT is expected to defend its position vigorously.

Outperforming sector and market this morning @ plus 2.54%

ains

BT pushes the alternative to leased lines: SDSL
Tuesday 11 February 2003, 6:17:20 AM
United Kingdom
Written by James Moreton
Businesses tend to favour E1 leased lines for high speed Internet connections.

Being a dedicated line, E1 does not suffer from the contention issues that xDSL has. Unfortunately this means that they have a high price is usually paid, being far more expensive than the DSL alternative.


SDSL, with the main advantage of having the same upload speed as download, will be able to undercut the leased line prices. BT will be offering businesses SDSL for 200/month + 450 setup, with other companies such as Star Internet and Easynet offering similar services.


It is true that SDSL does not offer the same guarantee of service as its leased counterpart, but will that really matter if it saves thousands?

More ISPs 'to impose download limits'
14:21 Tuesday 11th February 2003
Graeme Wearden


With broadband networks increasingly 'swamped' by P2P traffic, experts predict that by the end of the year most ISPs will limit how much data users can download
The widespread and growing use of peer-to-peer networks is likely to force broadband operators to restrict the amount of data their subscribers are allowed to download, according to analyst group Jupiter Research.

Jupiter Research warned this week that file sharing is growing "at a phenomenal rate", and that the sheer volume of music and movie files being transferred between users is putting a huge burden on broadband service providers.

According to Jupiter, some broadband ISPs are finding that over 50 percent of the traffic on their networks is caused by P2P file-sharing.

"Although not the only factor in driving Internet users to broadband, file-sharing has proven to be broadband's first 'killer application,'" said Dan Stevenson, analyst at Jupiter Research, in a research note. "As well as being a big problem for record labels and the Hollywood studios alike, Internet service providers are beginning to suffer too -- under the heavy weight that file-sharing imposes on their networks."

As a result of the increased traffic, these operators will probably be forced to limit the amount of data its broadband customers are allowed to download from the Net. Should they exceed this limit, they will be charged extra.

"Not wanting to take on the file-sharing networks in court, the best solution for broadband service providers to address this issue would be to impose monthly data limits on their subscribers," Stevenson advised.

Jupiter predicts that by the end of 2003 such data limits will be "the rule, not the exception."

Such a move is likely to prove unpopular with broadband users, though, who are likely to feel that data limits are at odds with the idea of an unlimited, always-on service.

NTL caused a large amount of controversy over the last few days after introducing data limits for its broadband service. It plans to target people who regularly download more than 1GB of data per day.

Back in October 2001, BT also caused a storm of protest when it blocked the ports used by some peer-to-peer applications. It said the move was an attempt to ensure it offered a decent service for all users, but did back down after many customers complained.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

British Telecom

BUY at 176.2p says Merrill Lynch (10th February 2003).

BT releases Q3 figures on Thursday 13th February, when Merrill expects the telecom giant to report group revenues of 4.76bn and group EBITDA of 1.48bn. The broker notes that the group's cost cutting efforts will have helped to offset any weakness in top line growth during the quarter as it did in Q2. In the short term Merrill believes there may be upside potential to its 2004 EPS forecast of 15.9p, given the group's "conservative" cost cutting targets. However some concern remains in the long term, as the broker suspects the fixed-mobile substitution, a trend to which BT is exposed, will be slower in Europe than in the US. Merrill however retains a positive rating and a price objective of 230p ahead of the results.

BT click&buy for the more mature surfer
Wednesday 12 February 2003, 4:04:23 AM
United Kingdom
Written by James Moreton - see netfornowt for fukk article

We have this release from BT, listing a number of popular sites available for our more seasoned readers:


"Its not young people, but those aged 50 plus, that are the most rapidly growing group of internet users in the UK. With the overwhelming selection of content already available on the web, BT click&buy provides users with a trusted source of valuable content at the click of a button.


BT recognises that there is still a reluctance to give out creditcard details across multiple web sites, particularly for the more mature surfer. The revolutionary service from BT provides a simple, safe and secure way to access high quality content, without the risk of giving out credit card details for each purchase. With BT click&buy, you simply register once to open an online account. Any content purchased via BT click&buy is added to this central account and can then be settled using credit cards, debit cards, direct debit or, from April 2003, the BT home phone bill.

The UK has one of the highest percentages of mature web users in Europe. Content available via BT click&buy is proving to be extremely popular with this more mature market, with over 20 per cent of registered users aged 50 or over.

This elite and growing group can go to www.btclickandbuy.com to buy premium content from a wide range of web sites from the world of food, sport, entertainment and leisure, to name just a few:

Premium service aims at families

By Mike Magee: Wednesday 12 February 2003, 12:14


BT AND YAHOO! HAVED SIGNED A DEAL that targets UK broadband customers and seems directly aimed at competing with AOL. The new service called Yahoo! UK Plus offers a range of extras intended to be family friendly.
While experienced Net users are likely to turn up their noses, the new deal could well be a thorn in AOL's side. It offers a "personalised portal experience" and some useful extra software. Most notably, the service includes a firewall, anti-virus and anti-spam filtering, just the sort of thing that the average user needs but may not know about.

To help parents avoid having to give their children an early education about the birds and the bees, the package includes parental controls. The more you read about it, the more it sounds like AOL. It even comes with instant messaging.

Yahoo! says that its equivalent service in the US has been a great success. The new UK service will almost certainly be priced at a premium, though how much it will cost has not yet been stated.

There is no sign of how the two companies will market this offering but, given their size, national newspaper ads seem a certainty. Provided the price is right, they are sure to get plenty of customers.

Strange Facts
In a survey that is running on a BT Openworld users forum, 29% of BTO users polled thought that the service should be bandwidth capped to ensure the majority of users don't suffer. NTL was recently derided by many of its users for introducing a cap and BT Openworld is no stranger to that sort of problem. The latter blocked IP ports used by peer-to-peer software such as Kazaa and suffered a nasty PR backlash.