East Midlands
intouch Autumn 2013
Our half- year
financial results
highlighted the
fact that our fibre
network now passes
more than 17million
premises, with
more than 2million homes and
businesses using our fibre based
services.
Also noted alongside the commercial rollout
was the great progress with our BDUK
partnerships - you can read about some
of these and case studies of how SMEs are
reaping the rewards of fibre technology in
this issue. The success of BT Sport was also
highlighted, which is not only good news for
sports fans but also has the benefit of driving
broadband take up which can only have a
positive impact across the region.
You may also be aware that Ofcom has
just released their latest UK Infrastructure
Report. This report provides a very
comprehensive review of actual UK
communication infrastructure as of today.
It highlights the strong position of the UK
compared to major EU countries, and the US
in particular, against the key government
targets of SFBB coverage, take up and
overall speed. The report also highlights that
most of the growth in coverage is a result
of BT’s continued investment in fibre and
recognise that the BDUK programme will
help to address this going forward.
But it’s not just about broadband - we take
our social responsibilities seriously at every
level of engagement. We are working with
organisations across the UK to help people
overcome the digital divide and providing
the technology and support for initiatives
such as BBC Children in Need.
It’s a very exciting time for us all.
New postcode checker for fibre broadband
The postcode checker – which tells users when
exchanges in their area are due to have fibre
broadband equipment installed – now offers
more precise information about the status of
their own local exchange.
Instead of telling users about all of the
exchanges in their area, the postcode checker
narrows it down to the exchange that serves
them, annotated with the symbol that
applies to the current super-fast status of the
exchange. This gives a much clearer picture of
whether they are likely to be able to receive
fibre services.

New postcode checker for
fibre broadband

East Midlands looks forward
to super-fast future
New research shows fibre
 network boosting local
economy

Small businesses making it
big with fibre broadband

Power of fibre broadband
feature on YouTube

Young people given a
sporting chance

Disabled people still facing
digital divide
Owen Moody, Regional Director for the East
Midlands
owen.moody@bt.com.
Openreach’s recently launched
new-look super-fast broadband web
page now gives customers a better
idea of when their exchange will be
upgraded.
 Regional Director’s Message
The checker will provide the information
required for 99 per cent of enquiries – the
exceptions being where postcodes straddle a
number of exchange boundaries,
as they do in Shropshire and Wales.
The new web page also features a list of all
internet service providers offering fibrebased broadband services on the Openreach
network, plus a new ‘don’t let your internet
connection hold you back’ video animation.
In addition, it has been made more mobilefriendly, so it can be viewed on phones and
tablets more easily.
The web page now attracts around 200,000
visitors, and delivers around 25,000
clickthroughs to ISP websites every month.
Check it out at www.superfast-openreach.
co.uk
More Rutland communities
 now connected to fibre
network

Apprentices answer calls from
customers and community

BT volunteers win support for
community groups
BT unveils super-fast
 broadband plans for
thousands
East Midlands
intouch Autumn 2013
East Midlands looks forward to super-fast future
Three county councils across the
East Midlands have recently signed
multi-million pound deals with us
that will bring fibre broadband closer
for thousands more homes and
businesses throughout the region.
have access to speeds of up to 80Mbps.
In Derbyshire, we are contributing to the
County Council-led Digital Derbyshire
programme, which will make the technology
available to a further 88,000 properties and
take coverage in the county to more than 95
per cent by 2016.
All these partnerships build on existing
commercial programmes in the region, and
aim to ensure that everyone in the locations
covered will be able to enjoy speeds of more
than 2Mbps.
The company is also proud to be partnering
with Nottinghamshire County Council in
Superfast Broadband Nottinghamshire –
an initiative that intends to deliver fibre
broadband to more than 400,000 premises by
the end of next year. By the time the project is
completed, at the end of March 2016, 95 per
cent of that county’s firms and households will
Meanwhile, in Leicestershire, we have joined
forces with the County Council on a project
which, when combined with plans by the
private sector, should again allow 95 per cent
of properties in the county to receive much
faster internet speeds by the end of March
2016.
Bill Murphy, Managing Director, Next
Generation Access, BT, said: “This is exciting
news for everyone who lives and works in
Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire or Leicestershire.
Super-fast broadband will open the doors to
countless business opportunities, boosting the
rural economy and supporting thriving local
communities.
“Deploying fibre broadband is a substantial
challenge but a vital one which will help local
businesses to be competitive and ensure
they remain in the region. It can also play an
important role in attracting more firms to
these counties, helping to create jobs for local
people.”
Similar contracts have also just been signed
covering Newcastle; Merseyside; West
Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire;
Worcestershire; Berkshire and Oxfordshire;
Essex, Milton Keynes and Bedfordshire.
Bill, left, and Blake sign up to the Leicestershire
broadband launch
New research shows fibre network boosting local economy
New independent research by
SERIO at Plymouth University and
Buckman Associates shows that the
fibre network in Cornwall is already
providing a major economic boost
to local small and medium-sized
enterprises (SMEs) - making it one of
the best connected areas in Britain
and the best connected rural region
in Europe.
In fact, six out of every 10 (58 per cent) SMEs
surveyed said their business is growing because
of the new technology, whilst more than a
quarter (26 per cent) have either created
or safeguarded jobs as a direct result of the
efficiency and innovation that super-fast
broadband encourages.
Early findings from the study revealed that
after 12 months, 83 per cent of them were
saving time and money thanks to the faster
speeds and innovative services that fibre
broadband enables.
Nigel Ashcroft, Superfast Cornwall programme
director for the Cornwall Development
Company, said: “The economic benefits of the
infrastructure investment will grow over time,
In addition, over a third of businesses
participating in the study (37.5 per cent)
reported that super-fast broadband had
helped their business to generate new sales,
with a quarter (24 per cent) of that group
pointing to new trade overseas.
but we have encouraging early signs that we
are moving in the right direction in Cornwall.
Given the challenging economic conditions
for SMEs, it is great news that businesses are
growing, generating new sales and creating
jobs for the Cornwall economy.”
More than 35,000 local homes and businesses
are already taking advantage of the faster
speeds, including an estimated 4,130 SMEs.
The Superfast Cornwall project is on track
to deliver fibre broadband to 95 per cent
(originally 80 per cent) of the region, as well as
the Isles of Scilly, by the end of 2014. It is also
aiming to boost speeds for the remaining 5 per
cent of premises (about 13,000) by deploying
alternative technologies.
www.superfastcornwall.org
East Midlands
intouch Autumn 2013
Small businesses making it big with fibre broadband
Businesses all over the UK are now
seeing the benefits of upgrading to
fibre broadband. And for small and
medium enterprises (SMEs), faster
speeds have transformed the way
they work and their relationships
with their clients, as two satisfied
customers explain below.
Brian Rees is company chairman of the if
Agency, an integrated creative agency based in
South Manchester that delivers effective online
and offline campaigns for retail, leisure, finance
and other business clients across the country.
“When we set up six years ago, we quickly
embraced ‘first generation’ broadband
with ADSL that ran at 5Mbps downstream
and 800Kbps upstream. This helped but it
wasn’t a full answer. Large files still couldn’t
be transferred efficiently and many chunky
pieces of artwork were biked up and down
motorways, adding risk, time and cost to jobs.
“We understood that we needed better
connections to compete successfully against
nationally-networked agencies, and to work
more effectively with our blue-chip clients.
“Our IT consultant outlined the benefits we
could gain from fibre broadband with a superfast connection. We found that BT was offering
its new BT Infinity services in the region
and responded immediately to its customer
marketing. After two days of installation work
in November 2010, we have never looked
back.
“Using fibre connections, we are more
responsive than ever, and can now zap
45Mbps downstream and about 13Mbps
up. We worried about the cost and possible
inconvenience, but this game-changing
improvement in the service we can offer has
not cost us a premium, and we didn’t suffer
any disruption to our business.
“We understand that our connections are
the platform for our continuing success. We
always keep a close eye on BT’s plans and
developments so we’re best positioned to
take advantage of the latest technologies in
our ever-changing and furiously competitive
business.”
Stuart Landreth is one of the founders and
directors of Northumberland-based BeeBox
Systems, which provides background music
systems and digital signage to bars, clubs,
hotels, restaurants and family entertainment
centres across the North East and, increasingly,
throughout the country.
“The traditional industry model for providing
music services – still widely in use today – is
particularly slow and inflexible. The service
provider receives new material from the
content provider, processes it onto a computer,
burns it to a CD, and then sends it by post to
the venue for the landlord to upload locally. It
takes at least a week to complete the end-toend process when nothing goes wrong.
“Using fibre broadband, we upload new
content to our servers as it arrives from our
providers. Every night, each customer’s system
automatically downloads a scheduled daily
update that includes new releases and any
requests that they have made. If anything goes
wrong or our customer needs a last-minute
change, our fibre connection allows us to fix
the problem remotely, in real time, often while
the customer is still on the phone.
“Super-fast fibre has transformed the range
and quality of services we can offer. We have
two BT Infinity lines with a custom-designed
router that helps to load balance our needs for
fast content turnaround, and are moving away
from desktop-based software to a web-based
and cloud-based management system so that
we can work from anywhere, at any time.
“We no longer experience capacity constraints
that affect our general office systems, so
we use all our time far more effectively.
We automate where we can to add new
services, and to keep our costs low and prices
competitive.”
If your business has received a boost from fibre
broadband, and you would like your story to
be featured as a case study in a future edition
of InTouch, we would love to hear from you.
Please contact regions.comms@bt.com
Power of fibre broadband featured on YouTube
The winning entries in a short story
competition held in Northern Ireland
have been turned into thoughtprovoking films on the power of fibre
broadband and they can now be
found on YouTube.
write a 500-word story illustrating how fibre
broadband can transform people’s lives. Take a
look at these inspiring videos – they really help
bring the story to life.
Northern Ireland Broadband’s ‘Super Short’
competition challenged teenage citizens to
Another inspiring video available on YouTube
has been produced, capturing the great work
Fourteen-year-old Enniskillen student Dorothy
McDowell’s film can be viewed here. Twelveyear-old Lisburn student Amy Warke’s film can
be viewed here.
that is going on in Cornwall via the Get IT
Together programme to help local people take
their first steps to get online.
You can view the video on the Better Future
YouTube channel here.
East Midlands
intouch Autumn 2013
Young people given a sporting chance
An exciting new venture between
BT and its BT Sport partners and
Comic Relief is using the power of
sport to help disadvantaged young
people both here in the UK and
around the world.
The Supporters Club has been set up to raise
money to fund the coaches, mentors and
teachers that these young people need to
help them to fulfil their potential.
When customers sign up to BT Sport
through our call centres, bt.com or www.
thesupportersclub.org, they are being
invited to make a recurring £1, £3 or £5
monthly donation to The Supporters Club,
collected via their BT bills. However, people
who haven’t signed up to BT Sport but wish
to contribute can do so through our website
as well.
BT have donated £500,000 from various
initiatives to kick things off and will match
every £1 given by customers up to the first
£1 million. In addition, we are covering
the running costs of the fund so that 100
percent of donations will go straight to The
Supporters Club, which will be managed by
Comic Relief.
The scheme aims to support initiatives both
in the UK and overseas that utilise the power
of sport to help disadvantaged young people
improve their lives. These include projects
that boost enrolment and achievement in
school; reduce levels of exploitation and
abuse; secure jobs; improve health and
wellbeing; and heighten confidence and
self-esteem. We will be regularly updating
our website and producing TV programmes
featuring projects funded by The Supporters
Club, which will be broadcast on BT Sport.
Business responsibility matters to BT, and
social responsibility is a central part of our
business strategy. The Supporters Club as an
effective way for us to work hand in hand
with our customers and our employees to
make a real difference to disadvantaged
young people.
Already, thousands of customers and BT
employees have signed up to donate to
The Supporters Club, bringing in around
£300,000 a year, which BT will match –
adding a further £300,000 in the pot. To
find out more about the scheme, visit www.
sport.bt.com
Disabled people still facing digital divide
The potential for mainstream
technology to transform the
lives of the 11 million disabled
people in the UK remains largely
untapped, according to research
funded by BT’s Connected Society
programme.
In a new report, disability charity Scope and
the Royal College of Art’s Helen Hamlyn
Centre for Design argue that disabled
people still encounter a huge digital
divide – and that many still have to choose
between expensive specialist equipment
and inaccessible mainstream gadgets.
Researchers from the Helen Hamlyn Centre
for Design discovered that technology
built for disabled people is expensive,
offers low functionality and often requires
specialist knowledge to adapt. Mainstream
technology, like iPads and Windows Tablets,
is cheaper and can do much more, but is
rarely customised to meet disabled people’s
needs.
To coincide with the launch of the report –
entitled Enabling Technology – BT, Scope
and the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design
unveiled a series of digital technology
prototypes at the London Design Festival in
September. These included:
The research also found that the
information available to disabled people
about enabling technology needs to be
improved. They are amongst the groups
least likely to use the internet, and are
20 per cent less likely to be online than
their peers – despite the huge potential of
services like online shopping and banking
which could transform their lives.
•the ‘Tailored Touch’ mouse, which can be
made from touch-sensitive pads on any
surface, and in any shape or size
With this in mind, the report outlines
a series of recommendations for
technology companies, commissioners
and the providers of key digital services to
maximise the ‘enabling potential’ of digital
technology.
•the ‘Pop-up Reader’, which allows a
blind or partially-sighted person to read
letters and other documents via their
smartphone.
The Enabling Technology report, plus
accompanying videos, can be found at
http://blog.scope.org.uk/2013/09/20/
technology-for-disabled-people
East Midlands
intouch Autumn 2013
More Rutland communities now connected to fibre network
Thanks to the Digital Rutland
project, more than 2,700
properties in the county are now
able to sign up to high-speed fibre
broadband.
Early feedback from North Luffenham,
the location of the first cabinet to be
switched on in Rutland, is positive with
many homeworkers among the first to
place an order for super-fast broadband.”
Just over half of homes and businesses in
Uppingham have access to the technology,
along with the majority of properties
in the villages of Edith Weston, Ketton,
Stretton and Ridlington. They follow North
Luffenham, which was the first area to be
upgraded.
During the next few months, the majority
of the 17,000 premises within the county
will gain access to fibre broadband
through the Digital Rutland project and
as part of our commercial roll-out. All
10 local telephone exchanges are being
upgraded, enabling firms and households
to receive high-speed services from an
internet provider of their choice.
Deputy Leader of Rutland County Council,
Councillor Terry King, said: “After months
of hard work, we’re pleased to have over
2,700 homes across six communities now
able to connect to fibre broadband.
The main technology deployed will be
Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC), which is
capable of delivering speeds of up to
80Mbps. Even faster Fibre to the Premises
(FTTP) technology, offering speeds of up
to 330Mbps, will also be made available
on demand in FTTC areas.
Digital Rutland is funded by Rutland
County Council, BT and BDUK (Department
for Culture, Media & Sport). For more
information about the project, visit www.
rutland.gov.uk/digitalrutland
Apprentices answer calls from customers and community
2013 has been a busy year for the
48 apprentices recruited at our
Lincoln Call Centre.
Having been quickly integrated into call
centre teams, they were soon taking
inbound calls, supporting customers
with broadband and telephony queries
and reporting faults to our suppliers,
Openreach and BT Wholesale. They worked
across all platforms currently used by
BT Retail, and also helped with BT Sport
enquiries.
In addition, the apprentices have had the
opportunity to go out with engineers to
see the end-to-end process, and have
been encouraged to network throughout
BT as a business – for example by spending
a day shadowing a manager, real-time
lead, coach or trainer.
As well as meeting their work
commitments, they recently joined 33 of
our advisors and managers in a spot of
volunteering at the local Sturton By Stow
Cygnets Pre-School, which was in need of
refurbishment. This included tasks such
as repainting the entire pre-school room,
cleaning out sheds, moving furniture,
painting fences and tables, building
flowerbeds, laying turf and planning a
sensory garden area.
We would also like to thank the local
businesses who contributed by donating
items such as paint, plants and a skip.
These included B&Q, Wickes, Homebase,
VIC UK Hire and the Living Garden Centre.
The time and effort put in by the
apprentices and everyone else who
attended was greatly appreciated. If the
refurbishment has been undertaken by
professionals, it would have cost the
pre-school around £7,000 – however, the
volunteers managed to complete the job
within its budget of £1,120.
Volunteers at Sturton By Stow Cygnets Pre-School
East Midlands
intouch Autumn 2013
BT volunteers win support for community groups
The company is rewarding
organisations and community groups
across the East Midlands with grants
of up to £1,000.
The donations are being made through our
employee recognition scheme, the BT People
Awards, which were launched last year. The
scheme acknowledges our volunteering
heroes, who offer their time and skills to help
people in their local community, by awarding
grants to organisations with which they are
involved.
Ten groups in the East Midlands have
received grants to help them to continue
their work in the community, including
Tintwistle Cricket Club in Tintwistle, 1st
Welford Scout Group in Welford, Albert
Village Junior FC in Swadlincote and North
Notts Deaf Children’s Group in Mansfield.
Owen Moody, BT Regional Director, said:
“BT has a long history of working with
good causes to help improve lives. We
see volunteering as a two-way benefit as
there are many development opportunities
when new skills are brought back into the
workplace. Some of these experiences can
only be gained by playing such an active role
in the local community.”
For more information, and a complete list of
the latest award recipients, go to
www.btpeopleawards.co.uk.
To find out more about BT’s wider portfolio of
activities please see our new brochure at
www.bt.com/charityportfolio
BT unveils super-fast broadband plans for thousands
In September BT announced a
further expansion of high-speed
fibre broadband in Derbyshire and
Leicestershire.
Openreach, BT’s local network business,
will carry out work to connect these areas
between now and the end of Spring
2014, subject to planning and technical
constraints.
enterprises want fibre broadband to help
them go about their online activities even
faster and better. Greater bandwidth helps
us build competitive businesses, efficient
public services and stronger communities.”
Around 8,500 local homes and businesses
in Holmewood and Old Whittington,
Derbyshire are to benefit, alongside around
10,000 local homes and businesses in
Goscote, Leicestershire.
The expansion also includes a substantial
investment in making fibre broadband
more widely available in certain areas in
both counties which are due to receive fibre
technology.
The company expects these to be the
final communities in both counties to be
included in its £2.5 billion commercial rollout of fibre broadband in the UK. Future
announcements will focus on areas where
fibre coverage is to be expanded even
further via partnerships with the public
sector and local communities.
Councillor Joan Dixon, Derbyshire County
Council’s Cabinet Member for Jobs, Economy
and Transport said: “Our drive for superfast speeds is well under way in Derbyshire
and this news of further local investment
from BT is very welcome. Our ambition is to
see households and businesses right across
Derbyshire having access to high-speed
connectivity. More and more people and
Leicestershire County Council’s cabinet
member for broadband, Blake Pain, said:
“The council welcomes BT’s investment in
improved technology and working together
with our Broadband Leicestershire initiative,
we will give many more of our communities
and businesses to access faster broadband.
This will make the county’s economy
more competitive and support our rural
communities.”
For further information on Openreach’s fibre
broadband programme visit www.superfastopenreach.co.uk