Kitz Forum
Announcements => News Articles => Topic started by: Black Sheep on January 30, 2015, 07:30:58 AM
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Message from BT's CEO (Gavin Patterson). May interest some of the members re; G.FAST ?
Q3 financial results 2014-15
Overall this quarter we’ve delivered good growth in profit and strong free cash flow.
Openreach achieved the highest growth in the number of landlines on record. It was also our best ever quarter for fibre broadband net additions. All the major communications providers are responding to the strong market demand for fibre broadband, helping to drive take-up in what is already a very competitive market.
Our superfast fibre broadband network now covers around three-quarters of the UK. As you know BT has been at the forefront of fibre innovation and investment, from which all communications providers benefit - and we aim to keep it that way. That’s why today I’m announcing our ambition to transform the UK broadband landscape from superfast to ultrafast via a widespread deployment of “G.fast”.
This is an innovative technology which we expect to offer initial speeds of a few hundred megabits per second to millions of UK homes and small businesses by 2020. Speeds will then increase to around 500Mbps to most of the UK within a decade, as further industry standards are secured and new kit is developed.
Pilots of ultrafast broadband with G.fast will take place this summer and we’re prepared to upgrade large parts of our network should the pilots prove successful. That upgrade will depend however on there continuing to be a stable regulatory environment that supports investment.
On mobility, we’re making good progress on our due diligence in relation to a possible acquisition of EE and will make further announcements in due course. In the meantime, our Consumer mobile launch plans remain on track. Tune in on Monday to the next edition of AudioByte for more details on our mobility strategy.
Going forward, our goal of delivering sustainable profitable growth remains a key priority for us. Not only does it provide us with options to invest in new technology such as fibre and mobility, our focus has enabled us, based on the strength and sustainability of our future cash flow generation, to agree a new 16-year recovery plan with the Trustee of the BT Pension scheme. This is a good outcome for BT and the scheme, and demonstrates that we are a much stronger company than we were three years ago.
Continuing to execute on our plans, particularly in Q4, is paramount. Please remain focused and committed to deliver. This will allow us to start the new financial year in the right place.
Finally, thank you to everyone for their efforts in putting the customer first. I was delighted to see the range of activity and ideas during our pan-BT #mycustomertoday online event earlier this month. Remember you can continue to add your views, recognise colleagues who are delivering great customer service and share with others what you’re doing to put the customer first.
Here’s to a great fourth quarter.
Gavin
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PS .......... he typed that out on an Apple i-Mac. ;) ;D
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thanks for the update.
Also good news for the engineers as a new rollout means work to keep you all employed.
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...where's the bit about the BT pension deficit jumping by a further £3bn to a total of £7bn?
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PS .......... he typed that out on an Apple i-Mac. ;) ;D
Just read it. On my iPad, of course. :P
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I guess that tells us that the plans for brownfield remain very firmly with copper + active electronics.
It is going to have taken the best part of a decade for FTTC to roll out the breadth of the country, so I guess we should expect at least the same amount of time for an FTTdp rollout.
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This is good news, thanks for posting, we can all start wishing we're in a pilot area.
PS .......... he typed that out on an Apple i-Mac. ;) ;D
Perhaps if they purchased cheaper computers profits would be higher, enabling earlier investment , unless of course in was his own computer :P
Read and typed on my Galaxy Note 2014 edition :P
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Its good to see that BT are finally looking at ways to replace the copper lines in some way. Its also good news for people on long lines, as I'm sure a fibre line is much more insulated from interference than copper.
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as I'm sure a fibre line is much more insulated from interference than copper.
fibre is light travelling down a glass shard. It's completely immune to EMI and RFI.
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This is good news, thanks for posting, we can all start wishing we're in a pilot area.
PS .......... he typed that out on an Apple i-Mac. ;) ;D
Perhaps if they purchased cheaper computers profits would be higher, enabling earlier investment , unless of course in was his own computer :P
Read and typed on my Galaxy Note 2014 edition :P
bad for me and you that the trials in the press release state non ECI only testing yet again.
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I wonder, did anyone dare tell the Gavin the telephone support is dire? :'(
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bad for me and you that the trials in the press release state non ECI only testing yet again.
That's just typical, I think we've been blighted with ECI cabs.
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I already posted on the plusnet forums if the gap becomes big between the 2 vendors I wont be paying the same price.
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as I'm sure a fibre line is much more insulated from interference than copper.
fibre is light travelling down a glass shard. It's completely immune to EMI and RFI.
But unfortunately suffers from modal dispersion (http://www.kitz.co.uk/adsl/fibre-optic-cables.htm#multimode_fibre).
The aqua jacketed fibre cables that we often see pictures of attached to the cabs is likely to be OM4. OM4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-mode_optical_fiber#Comparison) is capable of 100Gbps @ 100m but that reduces with cable length ie 10Gbps @ 400m, 1Gbps @ 1000m & 100Mbps @ 2000m. Still a lot better than copper though :)
Single mode fibre used on the BTw backhaul and BTw Core is a different kettle of fish, but very expensive.
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PS .......... he typed that out on an Apple i-Mac. ;) ;D
I don't suppose we can blame the i-mac but maybe in Q4, Gavin could get the hang of spacing such wordy text out a little to make it more pleasant to view/read.
It's a good job he isn't some sort of big cheese in a communications industry, isn't it ??? ;)
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Thank you for posting it B*Sheep. Once I filtered out the usage of higher management, er, waffle it gives a useful indication of plans for the near future. ::)
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........... another snippet from our CEO's latest message to his employees.
"I’d like share more information on G.fast, my perspective on our performance in Openreach and how we are progressing in Building Britain’s Connected Future. First, G.fast. I’m pleased to say that Openreach will be offering homes and small businesses access to amazing speeds which we expect up to 500Mbit/s within the next ten years. There are also plans to develop a premium fibre broadband service for those residential and business customers who want even faster broadband of up to 1Gbit/s. I believe this will open up a world of new opportunities for our customers and highlights our commitment to build Britain’s connected future.
We will be conducting two large-scale pilots of G.fast technology. One in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and another in Gosforth, Newcastle. Both will start this summer and around 4,000 homes and businesses will be able to participate. Both trials aim to explore what speeds can be delivered using G.fast at scale. We will be working closely with our CP customers to firm up dates and plans over the coming months. I’m looking forward to the next chapter in our fabulous fibre story, and we will be providing regular updates to you."
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I wonder, did anyone dare tell the Gavin the telephone support is dire? :'(
Being a bit over generous there aren't we... ;D
Although saying that there are quite a few other isps support who come into that category :-X
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I just found some additional analysis on the G.fast stuff, including some talk about the nature of deployment:
"There has been a breakthrough on G.fast in the last quarter and we now see a way to deliver it from street cabinets rather than just distribution points," [Gavin Patterson] said. "That means we can build on existing investments."
http://www.lightreading.com/gigabit/dsl-vectoring-gfast/bt-puts-gfast-at-heart-of-ultra-fast-broadband-plans/d/d-id/713418
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Another journalist had a couple of numbers for the potential g.fast rollout - 15m or three-quarters. Not exactly consistent there...
http://gfastnews.com/index.php/90-r/147-500-megabit-g-fast-to-15m-brits