Profile: BT Group PLC (BT.N)

BT Group plc, incorporated on March 30, 2001, is a communications services company. The Company is engaged in providing and managing data and voice networks and providing a range of services over these networks. It operates in approximately 170 countries worldwide. The Company is a principal communications services provider, selling products and services to consumers, small and medium-sized enterprises and the public sector. The Company also sells wholesale products and services to communications providers in the United Kingdom and around the world. The Company supplies managed networked information technology (IT) services to multinational corporations, domestic businesses and national and local government organizations. Bt has four lines of business: BT Global Services, BT Retail, BT Wholesale and Openreach. In December 2012, the Company sold of its remaining 9.1% iin Tech Mahindra Ltd to institutional investors.

BT Global Services

BT Global Services is engaged in the provision of managed networked IT services for corporate and public sector customers. The Company provides services to around 7,000 corporate and public sector customers. The Company’s corporate customers operate in a wide range of sectors including banking and financial services, manufacturing, logistics, pharmaceuticals, and consumer packaged goods. It serves customers

in the public sector in the United Kingdom, including central government and local councils as well as public sector organisations outside the United Kingdom. Globally it provides transit and other wholesale services to global carriers. Products are sold globally, and customers are served locally in their own countries and sectors by teams who understand their specific business challenges and create locally relevant solutions. It has operations around the world so that it can serve the domestic and international needs of its customers. It operates domestic businesses in markets in Continental Europe such as Italy, Germany, Benelux, France and Spain, and have local network infrastructure including fibre networks in 24 major European cities. It operates in 45 countries across the Middle East and Africa. In Latin America it operate in 22 countries. In the United States and Canada it serves customers from offices in 35 cities. The Company serves 18 countries in the Asia Pacific region including India, China, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, Japan and Australia.

BT Retail sells calls, lines and broadband into the consumer market under two brands: BT and Plusnet. Under its BT Infinity brand it offers

fibre-based broadband using fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology. It also offers a pay-TV

service, BT Vision. It offers customers a choice of packages of calls, broadband and pay-TV services. When choosing their lines and calls, broadband and pay-TV, more than half of United Kingdom consumers now buy two or more of those services from the same supplier. The Company connects its customers to their customers through its virtual private network (VPN), connectivity and value added services. The Company provides a range of products and services to do this, such as BT MPLS, BT Etherflow and BT Application Assured Infrastructure (services to optimize application performance over networks).

The Company provides a range of communication services to enable organizations to collaborate and communicate. This spans from the provision of public switched telephone network (PSTN) and integrated services digital network (ISDN) services, to its global managed services for Internet protocol (IP) telephony, and collaboration tools, either hosted on the customer site or as a cloud-based service. Through the combination of its professional services, cloud platforms and global inbound voice services, it offers a suite of customer relationship management (CRM) tools that gives its customers the flexibility and value they require when dealing with their end customers. The Company provides a range of security and risk management products from professional services to assess risk and vulnerability, through to a suite of proactive managed security services. With its global estate of data centers across the world, it provides a range of hosting and managed services. With the launch of its virtual data centre offering, BT Virtual Data Centre (VDC), it has a new generation of cloud-based services.

The Company provides fixed lines and a choice of calling plans, including a range of unlimited options to meet customer preferences for evening, weekend and peak-time calling. All options include free calling features such as call waiting and free inclusive 0800 and 0845 minutes. It also offers alternative payment options such as Line Rental Saver which reduces the line rental charge if customers pay for a whole year upfront. It sells broadband services under the BT, Plusnet and BT Infinity brands with a wide range of speeds. BT Broadband and BT Infinity have a range of options for usage limits and bundled call plans, and include its free wireless Home Hub, free online storage and security services and

unlimited access to its wi-fi hotspots.

BT Retail

BT Retail serves its customers through four customer-facing divisions:

BT Consumer; BT Business; BT Ireland, and BT Enterprises. BT Retail sells calls, lines and broadband into the consumer market under two brands: BT and Plusnet. Under the Company’s BT Infinity brand it offers fibre-based broadband using fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology. It also offers a pay-TV service, BT Vision. In order to win and retain customers it is important for us to offer all three services and to package them together in flexible bundles to meet customer needs and respond to competition. It offers customers a choice of packages of calls, broadband and pay-TV services. They offer to the customers and encourage take-up of additional services. When choosing their lines and calls, broadband and pay-TV, more than half of United kingdom consumers buy two or more of those services from the same supplier. BT Retail provides communication products and services to the consumer market and provides IT and communications services to SMEs. BT Retail includes BT Ireland which operates across the corporate, SME, consumer and wholesale markets throughout the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. BT Retail also includes BT Enterprises which comprises a number of individual businesses, including BT Conferencing, BT Directories, BT Expedite, BT Redcare & Payphones and BT Openzone.

The Company provides call services to over 10 meters of its fixed-line customers, offering value-added services like call minder, and value-for-money unlimited call plans, which include free access to 0800 and 0845 numbers. It serves the consumer broadband market with the BT and Plusnet brands. BT Total Broadband provides value-added services such as online storage, security and free access to the network of wi-fi hotspots in the United Kingdom, while Plusnet focuses on simple broadband packages for price-conscious customers. BT Infinity is its broadband product, delivering download speeds of up to 40 megabits per second using fiber-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology. BT Vision, its television service has over 8,000 items of video on-demand content available and offers BBC iPlayer plus TV replay services from ITV and Channel 4. BT Vision also offers Sky Sports channels on flexible contract terms and high definition (HD) and three dimensional (3D) movies available for download.

The Company supplies and supports business calls and lines, broadband, Internet, mobiles and mobile applications, domains and Web hosting, data and voice networks and IT services for SMEs. The Company sells to SME customers through its call centers, online, or through its desk and field-based account teams. It also serves the market through a network of 43 BT Local Businesses-regional franchises with their own sales staff and account management teams. Specialist business units within BT Business include BT iNet, a Cisco centre specializing in infrastructure, security and unified communications; BT Engage IT, a provider of business-to-business IT solutions and services, and BT Business Direct, an online store providing IT, computing and networking equipment plus associated installation and support services for SMEs.

BT Wholesale

BT Wholesale provides products and a broad range of voice, broadband and data communications services, including managed services for fixed and mobile network operators, Internet service providers and telecoms resellers in the United Kingdom. Through its Media and Broadcast and agile media business units it also supports the network needs of global broadcasting organizations, from connectivity and digital media management to production, post-production and interactive audience participation.

The Company manages and supports the network and services requirements of a number of national operators, including KCOM Group, Virgin Media, Orange UK, Vodafone, O2 and MBNL. By making its networks and services available to other communications providers (CPs), the Company provides them with an alternative to building their own network infrastructure. It has long-term managed network services (MNS) contracts in place with all of the United Kingdom’s mobile network operators to help them manage the growth in mobile data and video content generated by third generation (3G) services with high speed data connections that link mobile base stations to their and BT’s core networks.

BT Wholesale offers a range of wholesale broadband services, delivered over copper and fibre. Its traditional broadband products, including

IPstream, Datastream and IPStream Connect, offers speeds of up to 8Mbps (ADSL). Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC), its next

generation family of broadband products, offers speeds up to 20 megabits per second (ADSL2+) over copper. It also offers broadband services over fibre. WBC FTTC offers downstream speeds of up to 40 megabits per second and up to 80 megabits per second and WBC FTTP offers speeds of 100 megabits per second and 110 megabits per second. The Company continues to sell a range of capacity and call-based products and services, both regulated and non-regulated, using both traditional and IP technologies. Its white label managed services business enables customers with limited or no infrastructure to offer telecoms services such as telephony and broadband without the need to invest capital. The Company provides service, from accepting and processing new orders through to customer service and end user billing.

Openreach

Openreach provides services over the local loop network (also referred to as the ‘local access network’ and the ‘last mile’), a critical national asset that comprises the copper and fibre connections between telephone exchanges and consumer and business premises. Openreach is also responsible for delivering the roll-out of its fibre broadband network. In addition to delivering local loop services, it provides backhaul services that connect exchanges to CPs’ networks. The Company’s business is subject to regulation that requires it to sell services to all CPs on an open and equal basis, meaning that external CPs can buy services from it on the same terms as BT’s lines of business. To make How it are organised

Openreach is responsible for the United Kingdom access network- the copper wires and fiber connecting homes and businesses to their local telephone exchange via fixed-line local and backhaul connections. Openreach customers, which comprise United Kingdom communication providers and other BT lines of business, are offered fair, equal and open access to its networks. Wholesale line rental (WLR) enables CPs to offer telephony services with their own brand and pricing structure over BT’s network. LLU enables CPs to use the lines connecting BT exchanges to end users’ premises, and to install their own equipment in those exchanges.

The Competes with Daisy, TalkTalk, Virgin Media, XLN, Alternative Networks, Cable & Wireless Worldwide, KCOM Group, Computacenter, SCC, Phoenix IT, Kelway, Dimension Data, Logicalis, 2E2, Cable & Wireless Worldwide and Colt Group.