BT Tower
The number of new superfast broadband connections on the Openreach network reached a record 600,000 over the past quarter, bringing the total number to 9.2 million.
Earlier this week it was revealed that the government’s target of delivering faster speeds to 95 percent of the UK population had been achieved, with the Openreach fibre network covering 27.4 million premises.
BT’s retail business secured a third of the new additions, bringing its total user base to 5.5 million. Nearly two thirds of all of its broadband customers are now on fibre.
Openreach also plans to bring ‘ultrafast’ broadband to the majority of the UK within a decade and has increased its target for fibre to the premise (FTTP) coverage from 2 million to 3 million by the end of 2020. Its ‘ultrafast’ network is available to 886,000 properties using a combination of FTTP and G.Fast.
“We continue to work closely with the UK Government, Ofcom and our customers to expand the deployment of fibre and Openreach recently announced plans to accelerate our FTTP deployment to three million premises by the end of 2020,” BT CEO Gavin Patterson told investors.
EE’s 4G network now covers 90 percent of the UK landmass, bringing it closer to its own 2020 target of 95 percent, and BT added 235,000 mobile customers during the period. In total, EE has 29.8 million mobile customers, of which 19.6 million are using 4G.
Gains in the consumer and mobile businesses of BT were offset by ongoing declines in Business, Wholesale and BT Global Services, while Openreach revenues were flat.
BT as a business recorded revenues of £6 billion, a fall of three percent, although profits were up by a quarter to £660 million.
“Our third quarter financial results are broadly in line with our expectations and we remain confident in our outlook for the full year,” added Patterson.
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BT should prioritise reach those homes that still have pathetically sub standard broadband, before bosting those already blessed with superfast, to ultrafast. For the 5% that are not yet reached with a decent service, these kind of new items are a further source of frustration to the issue.