BT 2007 Annual Report Download - page 16

BT Workspace Lite, which enables everyone in the business to
store, access and share information. Customers also have the
support of a free, dedicated helpdesk, 24 hours a day, seven
days a week.
Converged services for business and major corporate customers
In the mobility market, our strategy is to integrate traditional
fixed, mobile and IP services to offer a single communications
solution to our customers – through commercial packaging and
through the exploitation of technological convergence. In
addition, we provide a range of managed mobile services to UK
and global customers who either outsource their mobile
communications entirely or rely on BT to provide specific
managed services.
During the 2007 financial year, we launched a number of
new services designed to integrate business and corporate
customers’ fixed and mobile communications services, including
BT Fusion Wi-Fi for Business – a single mobile device, designed
for the SME market, which offers a two-way handover between
Wi-Fi and mobile telephony. The benefits include high-speed
access to business applications, free access to all fixed and
mobile messages stored in one place and cheaper call rates.
In April 2007, we launched BT Office Anywhere, a service
that gives users the functions of a Windows PC but in a
smartphone small enough to fit in the pocket. Because, unlike
other smartphones, it comes with VoIP, BT Office Anywhere also
offers free hour-long internet phone calls to UK landlines, plus
capped calls to UK mobiles and international landlines from
BT Openzone Wi-Fi hotspots in the UK and Ireland, from home
and office networks, and from around the globe wherever users
have access to a compatible wireless network.
Traditional services for business customers
At 31 March 2007, BT Business Plan had almost 600,000
locations, up 16% on the 2006 financial year, and accounted for
57% of call revenues from business customers.
Customers of BT Business Plan (excluding the lite option) can
also sign up to receive BT Assurance Plus, free of charge. The
benefits of BT Assurance Plus include: the fixing of any problems
the next working day, including Saturday; a dedicated support
team and a Freefone fault reporting number; and the option of
call diversion to a mobile phone, another fixed line or a
personalised mailbox.
access to
40,000+
hotspots
Convergent services in the wider community
Increasingly, we are extending the power of convergent
broadband and mobile services out of the home and office and
into the community more widely. BT Openzone is one of the
leading providers of Wi-Fi services in the UK and Ireland. We
operate our own network of high-quality sites, which include
hotspots at Thistle, Ramada Jarvis and Hilton hotels, main train
stations, British Airways lounges, BAA airports and RoadChef and
Welcome Break service stations – and offer more wholesale and
roaming connections than any other UK Wi-Fi network operator.
BT Openzone offers customers a high-speed, wireless broadband
connection over which they can access the internet to work, talk
or play. At 31 March 2007, our BT Openzone customers had
access to around 10,000 hotspots in key locations in the UK and
Ireland and more than 40,000 globally.
We are also leading the way in building ‘wireless cities’
throughout the UK, in order to ensure that local residents,
businesses, tourists and local government employees are always
best connected, wherever they are, whatever they happen to be
doing and whatever device they happen to be using. In May
2006, we announced the creation of our wireless cities
programme, which committed us to Wi-Fi enabling 12 cities by
the end of March 2007. We achieved this ahead of schedule.
In December 2006, Ofcom published a consultation document
setting out its proposals for the award of available wireless
spectrum at a frequency ideally suited to the provision of
wireless broadband services, including those outside the home
and office. This award will be made through an auction which
could take place in late 2007. We believe it is important for the
UK that this spectrum is developed for wireless broadband
services and new applications, as is happening in many other
parts of the world.
revenue up
18%
Enterprises
BT Enterprises consists of six businesses – BT Conferencing, BT
Directories, BT Payphones, BT redcare (monitoring and tracking
facilities), BT Expedite (a specialist retail division offering store
integration solutions and services) and dabs.com – which build
on BT’s existing strengths to generate innovation and growth in
a range of communications-related markets. Revenues in the
2007 financial year were £710 million, up 32% on the 2006
financial year.
BT Conferencing, for example, is now the number one
conferencing service provider in Europe. It has 300,000
customers around the world for its comprehensive portfolio of
audio, video and internet conferencing services and products,
backed up by high quality service and support.
dabs.com, a leading internet-based retailer of IT and
technology products, is a key part of our strategy to strengthen
our online sales and services capabilities in both the consumer
and SME markets. (See Acquisitions and disposals in the 2007
financial year on page 19) dabs.com has a product portfolio of
around 15,000 lines from the world’s leading manufacturers,
including HP, Canon, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu Siemens, Microsoft
and BT. During the 2007 financial year, revenue from dabs.com
grew by 18%.
BT Ireland
BT has a long track record in Ireland, North and South, where
we have successfully run two separate operating units for a
number of years. In the 2006 financial year, we merged these
two divisions to create BT Ireland – a single, integrated business
serving the whole of Ireland. Our vision for this business is to
become the leading provider of networked IT and converged IP
services on the island of Ireland. In the 2007 financial year, BT
Ireland generated revenues of £738 million.
BT Ireland operates across four principal markets – consumer,
business, major business and wholesale – delivering innovative
broadband packages and complex IT services to customers, large
and small.
BT Group plc Annual Report & Form 20-F 15
Report of the Directors Business