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Some Good News at BT as Share Price Drops.
13 Feb 2009 | 08.34 Europe/London
BT's share price fell below £1 yesterday, a 25 year low, on the announcement of the 3rd Quarter financial results but there was some good news around in the broadband area. While the pension fund tanked from a £2bn surplus to a £2bn deficit and BT Global Services lost £0.5bn in a quarter, BT Retail's broadband revenue grew by 9% with net additions of 83,000 in the quarter. Openreach and Wholesale also posted profits for the quarter.
Background mood music from Ed Richards at OFCOM was helpful, quoted in the FT discussing next generation broadband rollout as saying "its planned regime will not be a barrier to this kind of investment. I am confident we will lay out a regulatory framework which will clearly enable companies to be free to make a return which justifies the investment they are making,"
What looks to OFCOM like "considerable pricing freedom" may of course look slightly different to BT, but such statements can only be helpful to the proposed £1.5 billion "super-fast" broadband project. Many remain to be convinced there will be sufficient return on this investment and are watching Virgin Media's 50Mbits/s service to see if there is a public appetite to pay a premium for higher speeds.
Less helpful mood music is coming from the EU where Telecoms Commissioner Vivien Reding is still nagging the UK Governement over its lack of action over last year's Phorm / BT Webwise trials. At the same time Phorm's CEO is quoted in The Register as saying his system "will 'most definitely' be live across the BT broadband network by the end of 2009". Although Phorm gets a vocal minority very wound up it appears that most of us are happy to have targetted advertising when searching with Google or using an AOL browser so the net impact of this controversy on public opinion may be very limited.
Background mood music from Ed Richards at OFCOM was helpful, quoted in the FT discussing next generation broadband rollout as saying "its planned regime will not be a barrier to this kind of investment. I am confident we will lay out a regulatory framework which will clearly enable companies to be free to make a return which justifies the investment they are making,"
What looks to OFCOM like "considerable pricing freedom" may of course look slightly different to BT, but such statements can only be helpful to the proposed £1.5 billion "super-fast" broadband project. Many remain to be convinced there will be sufficient return on this investment and are watching Virgin Media's 50Mbits/s service to see if there is a public appetite to pay a premium for higher speeds.
Less helpful mood music is coming from the EU where Telecoms Commissioner Vivien Reding is still nagging the UK Governement over its lack of action over last year's Phorm / BT Webwise trials. At the same time Phorm's CEO is quoted in The Register as saying his system "will 'most definitely' be live across the BT broadband network by the end of 2009". Although Phorm gets a vocal minority very wound up it appears that most of us are happy to have targetted advertising when searching with Google or using an AOL browser so the net impact of this controversy on public opinion may be very limited.