BT Group CEO Philip Jansen has outlined the group’s aims to rebuild BT’s reputation after clashes with the regulator, government and customers who complained about poor service.
BT, the largest telecom operator in the UK, will create a team of experts to help customers in the home and small businesses, speed up the return of its customer support teams to the UK and Ireland, and bring BT back to the high street by putting its products and staff into its EE mobile store network.
It will also upgrade 700,000 homes and businesses to faster broadband speeds at no extra cost and simplify its multiple operating systems to make it ready for greater automation, a move that is likely to result in a smaller workforce over time.
HIGHLIGHTS
# Upgrading 700,000 homes and businesses to Superfast Broadband by 2020 at no extra cost to customers
# BT will stop selling standard broadband connections on the copper network to 90 percent of the UK population
# Analogue phone lines will be removed by 2025 with the digital voice network
# BT 5G mobile plans available from Friday 11 October
# New converged BT Halo products for homes and business
BT will introduce a new converged product called Halo that will draw on its broadband and mobile networks to offer unlimited data and calls on mobile and at home.
The customer strategy does not touch on the biggest issue facing the company – how it will work with industry to fund the building of a new national fiber network – but is designed to tackle its position at the bottom of customer surveys.
“We’re starting a journey today with real changes that will have a positive impact for people and businesses,” Philip Jansen said.
The main challenge for Philip Jansen, who joined BT in February as the replacement for BT Group CEO Gavin Patterson, will be to secure an agreement with the regulator and government on how it can build a full fiber network and make a sufficient return from rivals, Reuters reported.
Philip Jansen told reporters there was a risk the cable group Virgin Media, owned by John Malone’s Liberty Global, could allow rivals such as Comcast’s pay-TV group Sky to access its network to provide superfast services to customers.
Sky relies on BT’s Openreach network to rent lines, meaning any tie-up with Virgin could mark a significant challenge to BT as it seeks a model that would enable it to fund the build out of fiber.
BT’s Openreach is building a full fiber network to reach 4 million premises by the end of March 2021 and has an ambition to reach 15 million premises by the mid-2020s.
