BT revealed today that its Openreach and EE businesses will spend around six billion pounds in CAPEX over the next three years in the first phase of a plan to extend superfast broadband and 4G coverage beyond 95 percent in the U.K. by 2020.
“FTTP will also play a bigger role going forward and I believe it is particularly well suited to those businesses who may need speeds of up to 1 Gbps. My ambition is to roll it out to two million premises and our trials give me confidence we will,” BT Group Chief Executive Gavin Patterson, says.
Ultrafast broadband will be deployed to a minimum of 10 million homes and businesses in the same period, subject to regulatory support, with an ambition to reach 12 million, BT reports. The operator says in a statement that the FTTP technology will mainly roll out in new housing developments, main shopping streets and business parks.
The BBC reports that BT rival Sky is unimpressed: “Despite BT’s claims, it is clearer than ever that their plans for FTTP broadband will bypass almost every existing U.K. home,” Andrew Griffith, chief financial officer at Sky, says. “This limited ambition has been dragged out of BT by the threat of regulatory action.”
“Networks require money and a lot of it. Virgin and BT have both pledged to invest and we will now see if others follow our lead. Infrastructure competition is good for the U.K. and so is the current Openreach model whereby others can piggyback on our investment should they want to,” BT’s Patterson says.
Openreach also gave new service commitments with CEO Clive Selley telling his communication provider customers it will deliver “better service, broader coverage and faster speeds.” That part of the business will reportedly hire 1,000 new engineers this year and provide further multi skill training for engineers so there is more flexibility in the work they can do for customers.
Additionally, Openreach is reportedly aiming to cut missed appointments in half to 2.5 percent within a year with an ambition to reduce them more after that.