BT Group

Philip Jansen has announced plans for the company to increase its FTTP ambition to 15 million UK premises passed.

To support growing traffic demands of 5G and FTTP, BT has chosen to deploy Ciena’s Waveserver stackable data centre interconnect (DCI) platform to increase the capacity connecting its data centres to the UK’s main internet peering nodes.

BT’s has plans to deploy 5G in 16 cities in 2019, while forecasting residential broadband growth to remain at roughly 40 per cent annually. This means that significant new capacity is required in all areas of the network, and particularly on the main core links carrying this traffic.

Openreach, the access network division of BT Group, is trialling a new type of ribbon fibre cable to aid its roll out of fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology across the UK.

UK communications regulator, Ofcom has proposed to make BT and KCOM the UK’s broadband universal service providers, following submissions of interest from eight companies. Ofcom is also consulting on the obligations that should apply to them in delivering the universal service.

UK communications regulator, Ofcom has revealed new proposals, alongside a consultation on its Business Connectivity Market Review (BCMR), to revisit allowing companies laying high-speed fibre cables – used by large businesses, mobile operators and broadband providers – unrestricted access to Openreach’s ducts and poles.

Gavin Patterson, chief executive at BT Group is to step down from his role later this year. The board has begun to the recruitment process for Patterson’s successor, whom the company says is expected to be in place during the second half of 2018. Until then Patterson will remain in the role.

In a statement, chairman, Jan du Plessis said: ‘Gavin has been with BT for just over 14 years and I want to thank him for his contribution to our business during that time, in particular during the almost five years that he has served as chief executive.

As part of its re-launched consumer strategy, BT has revealed a number of proposed products and services across BT Consumer brands, including EE and Plusnet.

BT has set out its latest strategy update as part of the incumbent’s full year results for 2017-2018. Revealed in the update is the intention to increase its FTTP and mobile infrastructure investment within an annual capex allocation of around £3.7 billion.

UK communications regulator, Ofcom has decided not to introduce a restricted dark fibre remedy for the period up to March 2019. The regulator consulted on proposals to introduce a restricted dark fibre remedy for leased line services at and below 1Gb/s until March 2019 last November, following a judgment by the Competition Appeal Tribunal.

UK communications regulator, Ofcom has published a set of measures that aim to increase investment in full fibre broadband networks and lower the upfront building costs. The draft has been submitted to the European Commission for comment, and a final statement is due to be published in March 2018.