Blueprint
SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION
Washington, D.C. 20549
FORM 6-K
Report of Foreign Private Issuer
Pursuant to Rule 13a-16 or 15d-16 of
the
Securities Exchange Act of 1934
Date of
Announcement: 24 July
2018
BT Group plc
(Translation
of registrant's name into English)
BT
Group plc
81 Newgate
Street
London
EC1A 7AJ
England
(Address
of principal executive offices)
Indicate
by check mark whether the registrant files or will file annual
reports under cover Form 20-F or Form 40-F.
Form
20-F..X...
Form 40-F
Indicate
by check mark whether the registrant by furnishing the information
contained in this Form is also thereby furnishing the information
to the Commission pursuant to Rule 12g3-2(b) under the Securities
Exchange Act of 1934.
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No ..X..
If
"Yes" is marked, indicate below the file number assigned to the
registrant in connection with Rule 12g3-2(b): 82-
________
24 July, 2018
Openreach
delivers wholesale broadband discounts
to help Britain upgrade its broadband
●
Proposals incentivise Communications Providers to upgrade their
customers onto superfast and ultrafast broadband connections over
the next three to five years
●
More than 17.5 million homes and businesses could order a better
broadband service today over the Openreach
network
●
Greater adoption will see Openreach deliver more money back to
publically subsidised broadband projects
Openreach,
Britain's digital network business, is introducing a new offer
which encourages Communication Providers (CPs) to upgrade a large
proportion of the country's homes and businesses to the better
broadband services it delivers nationwide.
The offer - which covers its
Fibre-to-the-Premises1
(FTTP) and
Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) wholesale services - is the result of
several months of work and discussions with CPs and gives them
access to long-term discounts in return for upgrading their
customers from predominantly copper-based
services.
The discounts go beyond the regulator Ofcom's pricing controls on
Openreach's superfast broadband products, and they will
allow CPs to encourage more of their
customers onto better services. Ultimately it should see the vast
majority of Britain's homes and businesses upgraded onto superfast
and ultrafast2 broadband platforms within five
years.
Upgrading more consumers and businesses onto superfast and
ultrafast services would also deliver higher returns for taxpayers
through more than 40 subsidised broadband projects being delivered
by Openreach across the country. Under a
gainshare3
mechanism agreed in
these contracts, higher adoption rates trigger increased returns
for councils, which can in turn be ploughed back into upgrading
remaining broadband not-spots.
Clive Selley, CEO Openreach, said: "We've invested more than 11 billion
pounds into our network over the last decade and whilst that's
helped the UK become a global digital leader, there are still
millions more homes and businesses that could benefit from the
better broadband infrastructure we've built.
"This offer is a win/win for Communications
Providers, their customers and Openreach. It will help Britain's
homes and businesses to experience the benefits of faster and more
reliable broadband. And it will incentivise our wholesale customers
to participate in our long-term investment in digital
infrastructure by upgrading more of their customers to superfast
and ultrafast services."
So far, 10 million households and businesses have upgraded to
superfast broadband on the Openreach network, but such services are
available to almost 28 million British premises. In May, industry
regulator Ofcom highlighted how roughly four million homes
with standard copper broadband connections could upgrade to
superfast services for the same price or less.
Openreach has been holding extensive discussions with CPs -
exploring ideas and growth opportunities - and listening carefully
to their priorities. As a result it has created an offer that
Openreach believes safeguards equivalence and competition in the
market, with the new wholesale prices available
to all CPs from 21st
August, and certainty
on those prices for a period of three or five
years.
The offer is available to any CP - including small CPs -
that grows its FTTC and FTTP customer base on Openreach's superfast
or ultrafast network by an agreed proportion over a three or five
year period. Details of the pricing
tiers can be found here.
This
type of deal - with CPs committing to customer volumes in exchange
for great value pricing - could help unlock further investment in
ultrafast FTTP broadband. The offer announced today includes the
use of Openreach's existing FTTP technology in some parts of the
country and it gives CPs the opportunity to offer FTTP to their
customers at very competitive prices.
ENDS
Notes to editors
1 This includes the
existing FTTP network and future build outside of Openreach's Fibre
First programme.
2 Superfast means
download speeds of 24Mbps and above - enough bandwidth to stream
around five HD movies simultaneously - whilst Ultrafast means
speeds of 100Mbps and above, which is more than twice the UK
average speed of 46Mbps.
3 Under the terms of the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK)
programme, we have committed to repay or re-invest grant funding
depending on factors including when customer adoption of the new
services we've built passes beyond the 20% mark in related areas.
This funding can be reinvested to further improve coverage and
speeds via future contracts. As of March 2018, BT has made
provision for £528m to be returned over the lifetime of the
contracts and £80m of this has already been committed -
earlier than required - to improve speeds and coverage in certain
areas.
For
further information
Enquiries about this story can be made to the
Openreach PR team at press@openreach.co.uk.
All news releases can be accessed on our
web site.
About Openreach
Openreach
is Britain's digital network business.
We're
30,400 people who connect homes, mobile phone masts, schools,
shops, banks, hospitals, libraries, broadcasters, governments and
businesses - large and small - to the world.
Our
mission is to build the best possible network, with the highest
quality service, making sure that everyone in Britain can be
connected.
We work
on behalf of more than 600 communications providers like SKY,
TalkTalk, Vodafone, and BT, and our fibre broadband network is the
biggest in the UK, passing more than 27 million premises. We're
also the platform for Britain's thriving digital economy, which is
the largest in the G20.
We're
working hard to give people the speeds they need to run and enjoy
their daily lives. Over the last decade, we've invested more than
£11 billion into our network and we now manage more than 160
million kilometres of cable stretching from Scotland to Cornwall,
from Wales to the east coast. And we're continuing to take that
network further - making superfast broadband speeds available to
thousands more homes and businesses every week.
Openreach
is a wholly owned and independently governed division of the BT
Group, and it is a highly regulated business, with more than 90 per
cent of our revenues generated from services that are regulated by
Ofcom.
Any
company can access our products under exactly the same prices,
terms and conditions.
For the
year ended 31 March 2018, we reported revenues of
£5.1bn.
For more information, visit openreach.co.uk
Signatures
Pursuant
to the requirements of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, the
registrant has duly caused this report to be signed on its behalf
by the undersigned, thereunto duly authorized.
BT Group plc
(Registrant)
By: /s/
Dan Fitz, Company Secretary
--------------------
Dan
Fitz, Company Secretary.
Date
24 July 2018