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

maybe ..... have added a few more and averaging around 166p ..... my 3rd biggest holding as of today .... they are still favoured by natwest in their latest review - within the sector where they are neutral on the sector.


I would expect them to start outperforming any time soon - Oftel and the pension thingy has had a more adverse effect than warrants but has allowed me to accumulate a few at bargain prices.


ains

BT rejects fixed wireless broadband plan
By Sarah Arnott [20-02-2003]

Government's 3.4GHz auction doomed to failure, say suppliers
Plans to auction wireless licences for broadband communications are in danger of becoming a fiasco.
The Department of Trade & Industry's (DTI's) auction of 15 regional licences to use the 3.4GHz spectrum will go ahead in May.

The government hopes that the new frequency will fill the gaps in Broadband Britain's costly fixed-line infrastructure.

But BT, which analyst Ovum touted as one of the most likely bidders, isn't interested. Pierre Danon, chief executive at BT Retail, described the government's policy as "stupid".

Talking exclusively to vnunet.com's sister title Computing, Danon added: "We warned the government very early that it was stupid to do 15 bids. We are certainly not bidding."

Supplier body Intellect also warned that the sale may not attract any bidders and analyst Ovum said smaller ISPs would also shun the auctions despite the low reserve prices set because of the cost of rolling out services.

The last attempt to sell off wireless licences was for the 28GHz spectrum in 2000, but only 30 per cent of the licences were sold and the third round of auctions is still going on.

Suppliers are wary of auctions because of the higher costs involved, explained Graham Macdonald, senior radio executive at Intellect.

"I am concerned that we will have a repeat of the 28GHz situation with 3.4GHz," he said.

The 15-licence model also contradicts government commitments to Broadband Britain because suppliers will only be interested in licences covering high-population areas guaranteeing a return on investment, according to Macdonald.

A spokeswoman for the DTI said: "The decision to have 15 licences is the result of more than two years of consultation, and that was the choice that came out of the process."

Comment: BT offers no SDSL guarantees
Martin Courtney, IT Week [14-02-2003]

edited

The prospect of cheaper 2Mbit/s wide area network (WAN) connections becoming more widely available in the UK is good news for IT managers. But unless BT backs up its wholesale Symmetric DSL (SDSL) bandwidth with service level agreements (SLAs) - stipulating service guarantees for reliability, and compensation in the event of failure - third-party providers might find corporates reluctant to sign up for their SDSL services. Not that this would be a total disaster for BT, which makes a lot of money from the leased line services that SDSL links threaten to replace

"Broadband to cover many more areas" - MP
Letter: There is no doubt that the majority of telephone exchanges which can provide broadband access are sited in urban areas.

Constituents from Little Chalfont and other areas where the exchange cannot currently provide broadband services have been in touch with me, lobbying for the service.

Broadband allows the customer to download or to send data by computer much faster than on ordinary telephone lines. The new technology can also deal with high quality graphics or music, much faster than previous systems.

Businesses can benefit from this technology.

An Early Day Motion which I signed earlier this month demonstrated that, if rural businesses are unable to access affordable broadband services, they are at a commercial disadvantage to their urban-based competitors.

There is encouraging news, though.

A couple of weeks ago, I met senior representatives from BT and learned that the technology is available to convert more rural exchanges to provide broadband. The key is for everyone who wants this technology whether private or business users to register their interest with BT or with their internet service providers.

The areas where there is a high level of registration are the areas which are top of the list when it comes to conversion.

Following my meeting with BT, I learned that residents of Holmer Green should receive the service from April 16. Sufficient numbers of people wishing to use the service have registered and so the service has been triggered.

People who live or work in Penn should be able to use broadband services, because the exchange was recently "enabled."

The Minister for E-Commerce and competitiveness, Stephen Timms, has also got in touch with me to say that every school should have broadband services by 2006.

In theory, that means that once the technology is put into every school, people living nearby should also be able to receive the service.

At the moment, the Minister says, about one in four schools in England have broadband access.

However, I recognise that people want to make use of the services as soon as they can, rather than waiting for the service to be "rolled out".

People living in Little Chalfont, Cholesbury or The Lee need to put in their registrations and persuade employers and neighbours to do the same.

For information on how to register please go to this site: www.bt.com/ broadband

It gives information on links.

Cheryl Gillan, MP

Chesham and Amersham

13:31 Friday 21st February 2003

BT...looking weak.

This looks promising and should help them continue Fridays progress

ains


LONDON (AFX) - BT Group PLC chairman Sir Christopher Bland is preparing to unleash a new wave of cost-cutting at the telecoms giant as he attempts to get to grips with the company's plunging share price, the Business reported citing industry sources.
Bland has moved to reassure the group's largest shareholders that the renewed declines in BT's market value, prompted by pension deficit fears, will not be tolerated, and that new savings will have to be found to lift profit margins.

A BT spokesman told AFX News that "there is more that can be done, and more to do" to cut the company's costs, but would not give specific details.

BT is known to be finalising a new round of cost reduciton programmes, including a major IT outsourcing agreement that will significantly lower call-centre expenditures.
The contract is expected to be announced within weeks, the newspaper said

BT plans 1.5bn injection to cover pension gap
By Robert Budden, Telecommunications correspondent
Published: February 23 2003 21:58 | Last Updated: February 23 2003 21:58 edited


BT Group, which runs one of Britain's largest pension schemes, is preparing to plough up to a further 1.5bn ($2.4bn) into its scheme to plug a widening deficit.


The move, which will mark one of the largest cash injections by a company into its pension fund, confirms a worrying trend as growing numbers of European companies suffer from record pension shortfalls after the Worst stock market performance for almost three decades.



BT, currently in the middle of a full three-year actuarial valuation of its pension scheme, is understood to have calculated that additional cash injections of between 70m and 100m a year over the next fifteen years are required to restore financial stability to its pension fund.

The additional payments, to be formally announced in May, will more than double BT's existing financial commitments to its pension. To make up its shortfall, BT is already committed to inject 200m a year into its pension in the five years to the end of March 2007.

The expected move follows sharp falls in stock markets. At the end of 2001, BT calculated the funding deficit in its pension scheme had reached 1.6bn. But, with approximately two thirds of its fund invested in equities, this hole will have now widened substantially.

Outperforming the market on a down day intraday


9:50am (UK)
BT Linked to Higher Pension Charge

By Graeme Evans, City Staff, PA News


Telecoms giant BT is poised to spend up to 100 million a year on plugging the 1.5 billion black hole in its pension fund, it was reported today.

The company, which runs one of the UKs largest pension schemes, will make the payments on top of existing commitments, the Financial Times said.

It is thought that BT will provide between 70 million and 100 million annually for the next 15 years on top of the 1 billion it already plans to contribute in the five years to March 2007.

BT announced a possible 1.5 billion black hole earlier this month after seeing falling stock markets hit the value of pension fund investments.

But it also said it had been advised that its payments were unlikely to change significantly from the current 200 million a year.

The company added today: The final results of our actuarial valuation will be known in May and until the results are known any figure is of course speculation.

The deficit, which BT said could be in the region of 1 billion to 1.5 billion, compared with 200 million at March 31, 2000.

Concerns over the pension fund overshadowed the groups third quarter results announcement two weeks ago, when a 37% rise in underlying pre-tax profits to 521 million was at the upper end of market expectations.

Supermarket giant Tesco has already announced it intends to pay 15 million to 20 million a year during the next 10 years to plug its pensions shortfall.
s

BT plays down pension gap reports

Staff and agencies
Monday February 24, 2003

BT, the telecommunications giant, today played down reports that it would have to inject an extra 1.5bn into its pension fund.
The Financial Times reported that BT was about to plough 70m to 100m a year over 15 years into its pension fund, but BT called the report speculation.

"It is speculation," a BT spokesman told Reuters. "The results [of the pension review] are not due until May."

BT is due to announce in May a pension funding gap, based on new accounting standards. Sharp falls in share prices have led to huge financial holes in pension funds at Britain's largest companies.

Under a new accounting rule, companies must use current market prices to value their pension assets - a method that threatens to reveal some big funding shortfalls in plans that have invested a large proportion of their money in shares. Stock markets have fallen in the last three years in the worst bear market since the early 1970

Previously, companies used actuarial methods, which allow them to make assumptions about long-term investment returns to determine the health of their pension funds.

For guidance, BT's actuary has used the old accounting standards to put the deficit at the end of last year at 1bn to 1.5bn. BT's finance director, Ian Livingston, said at the time the company did not expect the annual pension deficit payment to be much different from its current 200m. "Our actuary has told us that there's nothing to cause that figure to change," he told reporters.

BT's final salary scheme is one of the largest in the UK with more than 376,000 members and assets of 27bn as of March last year. BT is not alone in having to replenish depleted pension funds.

On Guardian Unlimited

Sounds as though they're still in denial, Ains. :-)

I think the pension fund is more robust than the market thinks .... BT are playing it down because that's also the way they see it



ains

London residents now have an innovative new way of sending messages to friends and loved ones with BT Internet Kiosks video and photo email.

Visitors to Internet Kiosk "blue boxes" at 8 locations in London will be able to record a 30 second video clip of themselves and email it to the friend of their choice. The technology is quick and simple to use, with detailed instructions to guide novices through - video clips can even be reviewed and re-recorded before sending, so they can be word perfect when they reach their intended recipient.

Video and photo email is being introduced for an evaluation period, should the service prove successful BT Internet kiosk will look at providing at more of its network of over 1,000 Internet enabled kiosks.

Video and Photo email will be available at the following locations:

Outside 220 Top Shop Oxford Street.
Cranbourn Street, (On the walk between Leicester Sq and Covent Garden).
Prebend Street, Islington.
Victoria Coach Station.
Heathrow Terminal 3 outside Burger King.
Waterloo Railway Station.
Harrow shopping centre outside McDonald's.
Thistle hotel in Marble Arch.

not helping the share price much at this time though .....


by Richard Agnew

BT is offering free trials of video and photo email from its web-enabled payphones in London before launching the service on a one-off charge basis next month.


The trial, lasting for the next two weeks, allows users to record a 30-second clip of themselves and send it on to friends and relatives free of charge.

It has been made available at kiosks on Oxford Street, Cranbourn Street, Prebend Street and at Victoria Bus Station, Heathrow Terminal 3, Waterloo and the St. Georges Centre in Harrow.

The company will then charge 1 for video emails and 50p for photo messages from 8 March and, if the trial is successful, extend the services to the rest of the country.

BT aims to have 20,000 internet-enabled payphones up and running over the next five years, most of which will by fitted with high-speed connections.

It currently has 1,200 installed and earlier this month began shipping a new range of broadband-enabled kiosks from Marconi.

13:42 Monday 24th February 2003
Graeme Wearden


BT believes it can increase ADSL's range without slashing its bandwidth, meaning that another 600,000 homes should be able to get a 512Kbps service after all
A longer-range broadband product being developed by BT will be just as fast as its existing consumer ADSL service, contrary to earlier suggestions from the telco.

This 'extended reach' ADSL is being trialled by just 10 people, but a larger trial is expected to begin in late March.

By increasing the distance over which ADSL will work, BT hopes to reduce the number of households that cannot get broadband -- even though their local exchange has been upgraded -- because they live too far away from the exchange.

Up to 6 percent of households in ADSL-enabled areas suffer from this problem. Technical limitations mean that today's 512Kbps ADSL won't work properly if the line loss on a telephone line is greater than 55dB -- equivalent to a line length of about 5.5km.

According to BT, this 'extended reach' broadband will halve the number of households whose line quality is too poor for ADSL to work.

"We are conducting internal trials, looking to extend the maximum line loss permitted from 55dB to 60dB. The impact of this would be to increase ADSL coverage in enabled areas from today's 94 percent to 97 percent," a BT Wholesale spokesman told ZDNet UK News on Monday.

Before BT launched rate-adaptive DSL, the maximum line loss allowed was 41dB, a maximum line length of just 3.5km.

BT had said last week that this forthcoming extended reach ADSL would run at 256Kbps rather than 512Kbps, a statement reported by ZDNet UK.

However, BT has now said that this is not the case, and that it hopes to raise the maximum line loss without dropping the bandwidth.

This confusion within BT seems to have arisen because BT Wholesale is also developing a 256Kbps ADSL product. This, though, is at a very early stage. According to BT, some Internet service providers would like to be able to offer a cheaper and slower broadband product, so it is investigating whether such a service is commercially and technically feasible.



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

20 more exchanges to get ADSL
By Tim Richardson
Posted: 24/02/2003 at 14:56 GMT


Another20 exchanges are to be converted to ADSL during May as part of BT's ongoing scheme to respond to hotspots of demand for broadband.

So far, 23 exchanges have been converted to ADSL as part of BT's pre-registration scheme. A further 135 are currently being upgraded.

Oh, and there are around 25 exchanges that are within a smidge of reaching their targets which, once reached, will result in BT upgrades to ADSL.

Anyhow, the following are all due to be converted to ADSL during May:

BRIXWORTH, Northamptonshire
GOOLE, Humberside
SLEAFORD, Lincolnshire
NEWTOWN, Mid Glamorgan
NEW MILLS, Derbyshire
HALSTEAD, Essex
THIRSK, North Yorkshire
ALRESFORD, Hampshire
LIPHOOK, Hampshire
HORSELEY FIELDS, West Midlands
GALASHIELS, Borders
NORTH SHORE, Lancashire
TOTNES, Devon
WARGRAVE, Berkshire
OAKHAM, Leicestershire
HEADLEY DOWN, Hampshire
SOUTHWELL, Nottinghamshire
TAVISTOCK, Devon
IRVINE OLDTOWN, Strathclyde
LOOSE, Kent

Congrats to all.

Monday 24 February 2003, 11:28:25 AM
United Kingdom
Written by Sarah Brown
BT have struck a deal with Internet security solutions firm, SonicWALL, Inc. who, under the contract, will supply products from its range of firewall appliances, which will form BTs entry-level firewall offering to its web hosting customers.

140/150 still looking likley as pension poss looking worse than first thought

not aware that it looked worse .... BT just following the market down with FTSE100 down nearly 3% - sector about the same ...... there is just one top 100 riser at this time and thats just a maths thing on two decimal places


ains



BT denies it needs 1.5bn pension plug

Richard Wray
Tuesday February 25, 2003
The Guardian

BT yesterday moved to quell fears that it will have to make a massive one-off payment into its pension fund to deal with an ever-deepening funding black
hole.

The company's auditor, Watson Wyatt, is still carrying out a five-month audit of BT's pension fund, which has 346,000 members and is one of the largest in the private sector.

Earlier this month BT insiders indicated that the fund could be as much as 2.5bn in the red, compared with 1bn three years ago, because of the decline in the value of shares since the heady days of the dotcom boom.

The company's triennial funding valuation is calculated using everything from share price levels to property values. The current audit is expected to be completed by May.

When the last triennial audit was carried out the company increased its annual payment into the fund by 200m over five years.

That payment is expected to increase slightly, with BT rolling its top-up payments over a longer period in order to boost the fund.

Speculation that the company will have to make a 1.5bn one-off payment to cover liabilities was denied yesterday.

"Our actuaries have indicated to us that they see no reason for us to significantly increase our annual top-up payments," a BT spokesman said.

The collapse in share prices across the world has left a number of leading British companies, including Rolls-Royce and British Airways, nursing large pension fund deficits.

Many companies which had been able to take "pension holidays" are finding it necessary to pour money into their funds in order to cover recent losses.

Pharmaceuticals group GlaxoSmithKline, which employs more than 100,000 people, recently announced its fund was 1.3bn in the red.

according to express today even if contributions upped to 250mil a year this would still take 20 YEARS to plug but dresner report says not even 300 mil year would be enough that is taking at todays stock market value if it drops even further which looks likley then they will have large prob and with market share dropping ie twt/ntl etc with less revenue coming in etc that does not bode well for future share price

Clearly the market is about people taking opposing views .... the review of the pension fund is yet to take place. The fund was closed a while back and I believe the staff and the trustees are happy with the situation and the measures that are being proposed. As and when the markets improve so BT will gain both ways. Market share is not what it's all about. That's just one factor in the marketing/pricing/ (and more importantly) net profits mix.

Bt are still the preferred supplier and preferred company within the sector. I use all the companies you mention and have recently disconnected TWT line as it is far more expensive than BT.

If you believe there will be a further financial meltdown then clearly you will sell both BT and the market ..... I think we are close to the bottom and therefore a bull on the market and BT. In a year or so we will see who is right.


ains