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Our fibre network
now covers more
than 20 million
homes and
businesses and
we’re passing over
70,000 additional
premises per week.
Demand remains strong with more than 3
million sign-ups. Around two thirds of UK
premises can now order much faster broadband
from a wide variety of ISPs using the new
network, all of whom have benefited from the
billions of pounds BT has spent on upgrading
its network. The vast majority of that footprint
has been enabled by BT under its commercial
plan, with the remainder being enabled in
partnership with the public sector across the UK.
Openreach are expanding their workforce
and announced nationally they expect to
recruit 1,600 engineers. The creation of new
jobs is one of the many benefits associated
with the roll-out of superfast broadband.
The government recognise that for every £1
they invest in infrastructure projects, such as
the rollout of fibre, there is a £20 benefit in
return together with the employment boost
supporting long-term economic growth.
A new international report launched by BT at
the International Festival for Business revealed
that the UK’s ‘digital first’ economy’ (i.e a
ubiquitous, nationwide, high-speed internet
connection) is a ‘great help’ when expanding.
The UK is Europe’s most desirable market for
companies looking to expand their business
overseas and sits second globally, narrowly
behind the US. Also featured in this issue
is the BT Better Future Report, our annual
sustainability report. This year’s report outlines
how our new strategy will have a positive impact
on society using the power of communication
to improve lives and ways of doing business.
There will be changes to all the existing
categories to provide a clearer view of the
fibre availability for individual postcodes. The
website will feature a form that anyone from
the general public can use to get additional
information about superfast deployment
plans or alternative funding options. The
new system will return four possible results
once an exchange has been enabled and the
map markers will show ‘cabinet enabled’.
• Accepting orders: Great news. Superfast
Fibre is in your area and your cabinet is
enabled and accepting orders. Contact your
preferred communications provider for your
intouchLondon | Summer 2014
Openreach Superfast fibre
website update
 We’re festival headliners

The start-up of
something wonderful

Full speed ahead after
fibre first
 BT’s 2020 Vision
I hope you will enjoy reading about what we
are doing both nationally and regionally.
Chet Patel, Regional Director for London
chet.patel@bt.com.
Openreach Superfast fibre website update
Openreach have updated their fibre
availability map on the superfast
website to show cabinet level results
where an exchange area is enabled.


Expanding our engineer
force in London

Putting wind in our UK
operations’ sails

Helping Internet Security
‘click’ with everyone
home or business to order.
• Enabled area: Your area is enabled for
Superfast Fibre but your cabinet is not ready
yet so you can’t place an order today. It is
in our plans to be upgraded and we update
this info weekly, so please check back later.
• High demand: Your area is enabled for
Superfast Fibre but demand is high on your
cabinet right now. This means you can’t order
Superfast Fibre today but we’re working
to increase capacity as soon as possible.
 ‘Tomorrow’s Workforce’
• Under review: We’re in your area but
we’re still assessing whether or not we
can upgrade your cabinet. This means
you can’t order Superfast Fibre.
 Harry and The Invictus Games
More information can be found here:
http://www.superfast-openreach.co.uk/
where-and-when/.
 The secret to tech success
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We’re festival headliners
BT were recently lead sponsor
at the International Festival
for Business (IFB).
It’s the biggest business event of the year,
and we showcased our expertise in smarter
and creative business practices. BT provides
services to around 900,000 small and
medium-sized business (SME) customers in
the UK, so this was a great opportunity to
meet and talk with them.
Gavin Patterson
speaking at
the IFB Global
Leaders Summit.
The UK. Europe’s No.1
expansion destination
To mark the opening of the event BT
launched a new international report,
which revealed that the UK is Europe’s
‘most desirable’ market for companies
looking to expand their business overseas.
In fact, ‘The art of connecting global
business’ reveals that the UK sits second
globally – narrowly behind the US.
The report, which surveyed 1,150
business decision makers across 13 global
regions, also explored the reasons behind
international expansion: which markets
were desirable and why? What are the
effects of being a ‘digital first’ economy?
And what are the barriers to expansion?
And respondents pointed to technology as
the biggest (37 per cent) barrier to making
their international ambitions a reality.
In turn, because of the perceived quality
of our IT and data security governance and
regulation, 91 per cent said that our ‘digitalfirst economy’ (a ubiquitous, nationwide,
high-speed internet connection) is a ‘great
help’ when expanding.
Accelerating growth at the IFB
Danny Longbottom, Managing Director
UK SME BT Business, also hosted an
event focussed on how SMEs can best
use social media, with the aim of inspiring
growth, motivation and collaboration
among businesses with great potential.
intouchLondon | Summer 2014
Communication’s worth
talking about
Chief Executive Gavin Patterson told city
leaders from around the globe that the world
is being transformed by communications.
He was speaking at the BT Global City
Leaders’ Summit in Liverpool, where 200
Mayors and leaders from the world’s capital
cities discussed their challenges, and their
roles in driving global growth.
Gavin said: “Our world is being transformed
by communications – from how businesses
do business to how governments govern and
how communities live; from how we educate
our children and how we care for the sick to
what we do for entertainment. And our cities
are, of course, at the forefront of that.”
He told delegates that our 160 years’
of innovation m eans we understand
how communications drive growth,
prosperity and change. Addressing
the summit’s topic – the shift from
the age of austerity to prosperity – he
explained just how vital technology is
to unleashing people’s potential.
BT Chairman Mike Rake said: “Liverpool’s
changed so much. It’s a great example
of how and why Britain’s cities need to
regenerate. It highlights the importance
of maximising local potential and
driving investment; of focusing on key
geographical pockets of industry and
innovation; and why local economies must
be properly governed and supported.”
BT’s Youngest Recruits
Our BT Apprentices were also out in force
– supporting ‘The Skills Show’ at Aintree
racecourse. And more than 5,000 Liverpool
school children met up with local business
people at interactive stations to try their
hands at various jobs.
At our stand, apprentices from Openreach
and BT Business gave students a taste
of what it takes to work for BT. Students
identified the correct tones to wire a
customer’s phone line, made sure routing
was done correctly in a telephone exchange
simulator, and saw the final result: a
customer watching BT Sport on their TV.
Students checked out the equipment used by
apprentices, including a working Diablo van,
and dressed in Openreach safety kit. Mike
Blackburn, BT Regional Director for the North
West was also on hand to offer his support.
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The start-up of something wonderful
Recently, as part of our Infinity
Lab programme, we asked tech
entrepreneurs to design and present
innovative products.
The aim of this competition was to discover
unique start-up companies that have created
apps and services to help Internet users take
advantage of superfast broadband. Apps with
the potential to be used alongside our existing
products, reaching millions of UK households.
The best entrepreneurs won six months’ of
our support, including access to our very
own experts in research and development,
engineering, legal, marketing and more.
They also had the chance to become members
at the sold-out TechHub community space in
the heart of East London’s Tech City - great
news for budding innovators, as they’ll be
able to meet, work, learn and collaborate
with a huge mix of tech entrepreneurs.
For this year’s competition, our winning
start-up company was one of ten shortlisted
finalists, Sedicii. Their ground-breaking
innovation uses patented technology to
protect personal online sign-in details. In
other words, no passwords are transmitted
or stored anywhere - except in a user’s head,
that is. And we’re looking forward to working
with Sedicii and TechHub to bring their
creation to life.
Chet Patel, Regional Director for London,
said: “All the finalists had a great story and
are businesses with a promising future.”
Rob Leslie, Chief Executive and founder of
Sedicii, said: “We’re absolutely delighted to
have won this award and be able to work
alongside a global giant like BT.
“For Sedicii’s identity exchange concept to
succeed we need to work closely with the
most trusted names in the business, and there
are very few companies out there which come
close to the strength of reputation and brand
trust that BT has in the marketplace.”
We’re constantly looking for innovations that
use ICT and communication technologies
to tackle current and emerging social
challenges. And you’ll probably hear about
those new innovations on these pages, first.
Full speed ahead after fibre first
Self-funded fibre broadband is
benefiting more than 60 businesses
at a Cambridgeshire Business Park.
Lancaster Way Business Park has attracted
an impressive and growing number of
businesses. The owners, Grovemere
Property, recognise that high-quality, highspeed connections are a must when you’re
looking to grow your business. With that
in mind, they’ve made Lancaster Way the
first business park in the UK to fund its own
fibre broadband cabinet. Lancaster Way is
flourishing. In fact, a flexible high-quality
employment space will soon be added, and
Grovemere expect the built-in superfast
broadband services will provide a further
boost to the tenants.
Harvey Bibby, Grovemere Property’s
Marketing and Development Director
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explains: “We know that the best
connections attract the best new companies,
and our existing tenants were already eager
for superfast broadband services. When
we found out that our business park wasn’t
included in the Cambridgeshire rollout
programme, we decided we had to make it
happen for ourselves.”
Mbps. It’s a dramatic change to the
service and tenants are delighted.
Grovemere spoke directly with residents and
created a detailed picture of their needs with
our Regional Partnership Director for the
East of England, Annette Thorpe.
Harvey Bibby is equally as happy with the
outcome. “We have 90 acres of development
land and we can design and build bespoke
facilities that are superfast broadbandenabled. Businesses on the park are already
operating more effectively and more
productively, so it is a win-win having
brought fibre optic onto the estate.”
“It was a very good-team work approach
from both the BT organisation and the
Grovemere team on the ground, with the
support of businesses who wanted it to
happen”, said Annette.
Lancaster Way tenants now get
download speeds of just under 60
Mbps and upload speeds of around 20
Lloyd Townsend, MD of ISON Distribution
Ltd commented, “Access to high
speed broadband is becoming more
and more important to us as we send
high quality images and video back
and forwards around the world.”
For this and other case studies visit
http://www.btplc.com/Thegroup/
BTUKandWorldwide/BTRegions/England/
Englishregions.htm.
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BT’s 2020 Vision
Our ‘Better Future’ vision has
been unveiled in our annual
sustainability report. It’s a new
strategy that’ll have a positive
impact on society – using the power
of communication to improve
lives and ways of doing business.
We’ve already invested £27 million into
being a responsible and sustainable business
in 2012/13. This went into three main
areas, each with a goal we hope to realise by
the end of 2020. It’s also part of our drive
towards profitable revenue growth and goes
beyond just reaching sustainable practices in
our own operations. It’ll recognise and utilise
the broader value we can give society too.
The ‘Connected Society’ portion of the
strategy looks to improve global societies
through digital connections. And if more
than nine out of ten people in the UK have
access to fibre-based products and services
by 2020, then we’ll have achieved our goal.
Our investments have rocket-launched the
rollout of UK fibre broadband to around 19
million premises.
The next segment of the strategy is ‘Net
Good’. This uses our products and services
to help society live within the limits of the
planet’s ever-dwindling resources. And
it’s all centred around a 2020 goal to help
customers reduce carbon emissions by at
least three times our end-to-end carbon
impact. We’ve already achieved our target
of hitting an 80% reduction in UK carbon
emissions – three years ahead of schedule.
And despite increased business volumes,
we reduced our energy consumption in
2012/13 by 3.3%, saving a mammoth £33m
annually.
The final ‘Better Future’ proposition is
‘Improving Lives’. As the title suggests, it’s
about using our skills and technology to
change hundreds of millions of lives around
the globe for the better. The aim is to raise
£1bn for good causes. An ambitious goal
for 2020; but last year alone we raised £59
million. This included over £25m through
BT MyDonate’s fundraising, telethons and
appeals; £2.9m through payroll giving; and
volunteering projects worth around £13m.
The BT Better Future Report 2013 is
available to download at www.btplc.com/
betterfuture.
Expanding our engineer force in London
We’ve recently announced our
plans to create up to 240 new
engineering jobs in London as part
of our major recruitment drive
across the UK.
We’re particularly keen to recruit
in locations within the M25 and St
Albans and we have had an amazing
response with over 12000 applications
across the UK in the first five days
Our latest intake of engineers are improving
customer service and taking high-speed fibre
broadband to even more communities.
Openreach has already made fibre
broadband available to more than 19
million UK homes and businesses – some
two-thirds of the UK – and more than
2.8 million in the London. Nationally,
they expect to recruit 1,600 engineers.
As more and more people rely on the internet
intouchLondon | Summer 2014
there are expectations for service increase.
New engineers will help Openreach continue
to improve customer service by installing new
lines and fixing faults as quickly as possible.
major recruitment drive for 1,600 engineers
across the UK, providing financial security
for families and delivering a world class
infrastructure for Britain.”
Openreach has also promised to
publish regular online reports on
how they’re performing.
Chet Patel said: “BT is leading the economic
recovery of the London as one of the region’s
largest investors. Not only are we building a
superfast broadband network, which is giving
a major boost to the region’s households and
businesses, we are creating highly skilled
local jobs offering exciting careers, such as
those announced today.
We expect a significant amount of exservicemen and women to take up the new
engineering roles – continuing our longstanding relationship with the UK Armed
Forces. Openreach is also particularly keen
to recruit more females, and has launched a
campaign encouraging women to enter the
world of engineering.
The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon David
Cameron MP, said: “Supporting business,
creating jobs and providing a better future
for hardworking people is a crucial part of
our long-term economic plan.
“So I’m delighted that BT is launching this
“Working with our partners in the public
sector we are determined to ensure that
the London is in the best position possible
to take full advantage of the superfast
broadband revolution. The region should
be really positive about its future. Exciting
times lie ahead for both BT and London. The
opportunities for businesses to grow and for
households to benefit from enhanced on-line
learning and entertainment are immense.”
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Putting wind in our UK operations’ sails
We’ve just signed three deals
that’ll provide 100 Megawatts
(MW) of renewable wind
energy to our UK operations.
The long-term Power Purchase Agreements
(PPAs) are worth £440 million. And the
energy will come from the 48-turbine
Fallago Rig wind farm 35km southeast of
Edinburgh, Lancashire’s new Heysham South
Wind Farm, and the nine-turbine Mynydd
Bwllfa Wind farm in South Wales.
Effectively, we’ve purchased 50 per cent of
the Fallago Rig’s output – enough to match
our Scottish operations’ power consumption
– in a deal worth around £300 million over
the next two decades. The 15-year, £100
million Mynydd Bwllfa agreement will
provide enough electricity for 50 per cent
of our Welsh demand. And the 15-year deal
with the new Heysham South Wind Farm in
Lancashire is worth around £40 million.
‘New to the Planet’ agreements in Wales and
Lancashire underpinning the construction of
these two new wind farms.
It’s an important investment as we’re one
of the UK’s major electricity consumers –
and used around 2 Terawatt hours (TWh)
in 2013/14. However, we’ve now reduced
the amount of energy we need for five
consecutive years, which has saved us more
than £131 million.
“At BT, we’re as focused on cutting our own
carbon emissions as we are to providing
products and services that help everyone live
within the planet’s resources. We’ve reduced
carbon emissions from our own operations
by 25.5 per cent globally during 2013/14.
Rob Williams, our Head of Energy Supply,
said: “These large-scale, long-term
agreements are a vote of confidence in
UK renewable energy and support BT’s
continued commitment to securing all its
electricity from renewable sources.
“They not only give us long-term price
certainty; but enable us to support local
economies in which we operate, with the
“These three agreements reinforce our
commitment to make a positive contribution
to society and the environment.”
Our Better Future Report for 2013/14
demonstrates our extensive work to put
responsible and sustainable business at the
heart of our operations. These three deals
are a big step in the right direction.
For further information visit www.bt.com/
betterfuturereport.
Helping Internet Security ‘click’ with everyone
The Right Click: Internet Safety
Matters programme was launched
at the BT Tower in London, marking
the beginning of our relationship
with UNICEF UK, the UK arm of
the world’s leading children’s
organisation. The partnership
will focus on helping parents and
children protect themselves online.
Over the course of three years, we’ll
deliver ‘train the teachers’ sessions and
workshops for parents and children filled
with practical ideas that’ll help them to
be safe online. We’ll also get involved
with UNICEF UK’s Rights Respecting
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Schools programme, expanding it into
disadvantaged areas across the country.
with – a decision they took after we inspired
them with our own know-how.
Before the launch, we conducted research
that revealed 52% of parents with school
children aged 4– 6 felt they didn’t have
enough support, or weren’t sure they have
enough support, when it came to talking to
their children about online safety. What’s
more, a further 21% lacked the confidence
to start the conversation with their children
in the first place. No surprise, then, that 75%
of parents would take further support from
their child’s school if it were offered.
During the first year, we aim to help children
in 100 schools protect themselves online
and develop their potential using digital
channels. But that’s just the beginning. Over
the three years, we hope to eventually help
and train a total of 600 schools, reaching
around 21,000 parents and children. And
once the teachers have been fully trained
to deliver our workshops independently, we
hope our combined efforts will reach around
35,000 children and parents.
In practical terms, we’ve promised 600 BT
volunteers to offer technical training on
Internet safety to teachers and parents.
We’re proud to say they’ll be the first
corporate volunteers UNICEF UK has teamed
Hand-in-hand with UNICEF UK – on and
offline – we’re supporting the wellbeing of
future generations. And we’re really excited
at the prospect of combining our recognised
track records to reach more school children
and teachers in some of the UK’s most
deprived areas.
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‘Tomorrow’s workforce’
London Mayor Boris Johnson and
our Chairman Mike Rake were
the key figures at a special event
that we held at the BT Tower.
‘Tomorrow’s workforce’ championed
the benefits of volunteering by
prospective employees.
Chet Patel, BT Director, London hosted
a discussion panel with business leaders,
academics and some students.
Before opening the discussion, he took the
opportunity to share an example of how
a volunteering scheme he’s involved with
is helping young adults: “For a number of
years we’ve run very successful mentoring
schemes for students age 14 and over, that
have benefited tens of thousands of people
over the years. About 18 months ago we
decided to take this scheme out into our
local communities and volunteering gave us
the mechanism to achieve this. Through this
work we’ve been helping them with their
confidence and advising, and explaining,
business in a way that isn’t boring, but
engages and motivates them.”
Chet went on to explain “This programme
makes a difference to their attitude; their
studies; their confidence; and ultimately
their exam results. We intend to take this
volunteering scheme to over 50 new
schools across the UK and with 200 plus
BT volunteers helping us by investing their
time and sharing their experience. And it’s a
win-win as our people get as much from it as
the students and bring what they learn back
into BT.”
One of the student panel members, Francisco
Fernandes, from Hackney UTC (University
Technical College), is already joining our
Media & Broadcast team at BT Tower.
Volunteering plays a key role in improving
employability and giving young people
vital new skills, training and much-needed
motivation. The Tower event called for firms
to allow their employees one day off a year
for volunteering. Mike said he’s proud that BT
employees can volunteer for three working
days a year.
Harry and The Invictus Games
We’ve just announced that we’ll
support a new international
sporting competition for the
wounded, injured and sick
from the armed forces.
The inaugural Invictus Games takes place in
London from 10-14 September. More than
400 wounded, injured and sick servicemen and
women - serving and veteran - will compete.
The inaugural Invictus games have been
championed by Prince Harry, who sent his first
tweet from the top of the BT Tower in London
to mark 40,000 tickets going on sale via the
Invictus Games website. Prince Harry said: ‘I’m
delighted that BT has joined us in making these
games a reality. They have a fantastic track
record in support to those leaving the armed
forces and to sport in general.”
Our Chairman Mike Rake, was present at
the BT Tower event and said: “BT has been
championing disability sport for 25 years. We’re
proud to support the Invictus Games, which will
be a powerful expression of values we hold dear
- inclusion and inspiration through sport.”
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The secret to tech success
London has been really successful
at building a technology business
community. But is the city’s tech
business model sustainable?
UK tech start-ups very rarely graduate
to enormous Silicon Valley market
valuations. Instead they’re invariably
snapped up by the big boys – Google and
DeepMind, Zynga and NaturalMotion
are two examples that spring to mind.
High above London, in the Level 39 tech
incubator at Canary Wharf, a panel of
experts gathered to discuss what makes
London a successful breeding ground for
tech start-ups, what kind of space and
support mechanisms tech entrepreneurs
needed and where the capital sits in the
international technology pecking order.
Chet Patel, who hosted the event, highlighted
the things that bring tech talent to London
and make it thrive. He also set out what big
firms need to do to help start-ups succeed.
“We need to be developing clusters in London
– we want to provide interfaces and contacts
with other companies to build up some
momentum,” he said.
“Large companies do take the view that
they support start-ups but it comes with
conditions, such as equity, which can put off
start-ups because they worry they’ll lose a
large slice of the cake.”
He added that tech start-ups don’t
need money, they need space and
mentoring. Creating space and a
competitive environment for start-ups
is something we’ve worked hard on.
“We’ve encouraged innovation by having
technology competitions around a theme.
Successful winners get a space and
intouchLondon | Summer 2014
connectivity for six months and this has
worked from a BT perspective,” he explained.
Howard Dawber, strategic advisor to the
Canary Wharf Group, led the discussion on the
different kind of spaces that London needs if
the sector is to keep thriving.
“From London’s point of view, one of the
issues is going to be space,” he said.
“We mapped Silicon Valley over London
at a recent event and you could fit the
whole of London in the Bay area; so
this idea that it’s got to be all around
Silicon Roundabout is crazy.”
Mr Dawber called for more space for startups, university collaborations, and so-called
‘grow-ups’, similar to Canary Wharf’s.
“If we are going to capture what I think
is a huge opportunity for London to
become de-facto tech capital of Europe,
we need to provide the physical space
for them to grow, as well as funding,
training and people,” he concluded.
Recently arrived from across the Pond,
the Financial Times’ personal and business
technology columnist, Paul Taylor, talked
about how his adopted home of New York is
going about its own tech renaissance.
“In the navy dockyards of Brooklyn - big
spaces - you have private and public sector
companies facilitating start-ups,” he said.
“What’s interesting is that they are
manufacturing-based, not software-based.
This reflects a broader trend in the US of
the rediscovery of manufacturing: small
manufacturing is where a lot of the real
innovation is happening.”
He compared the environment in New York
with America’s West Coast, noting that while
the former has a lot of smart employees, it
doesn’t have “oodles of tech employees” like
Silicon Valley.
“As with London, they have an advantage in
that you aren’t competing with Apple down
the road. In New York, you have people who
want to be there, which is an advantage to
you are a small company,” he said.
Russ Shaw, founder of Tech London
Advocates, explained why other
countries are looking at London with
interest, and where the question marks
over the city’s tech future lie.
“London’s probably one of the best cities in
the world in which to set up a start-up; the
question mark on this is can we see these
business through to commercial exits?”
He noted that since January there had
been some promising exits, such as
big acquisitions and IPOs. He recalled
DeepMind getting acquired by Google,
NaturalMotion by Zinga, King floating on
the Nasdaq, and Just Eat going public.
“What this is showing to the investor
community is that there is a lot of vibrancy
here,” he said.
Mr Shaw noted that many start-ups are
hungry for great talent and funding, but they
lack people to mentor and advise them.
This has led Tech Associates to set up ‘TLA
Triage’, which matches start-ups with
advocates to help and mentor them.
“That eco-system and support network will
ultimately set us apart,” he said.
He happily admitted the idea had been
borrowed from Silicon Valley, where firms
compete, but also helped one another out.
“I would like that this community becomes
like that network to make London a vibrant
technology sector” he said.
The overall conclusion was that there was little
doubt among those present that London’s
tech future remains very bright indeed.
7