BT 2012 Annual Report Download - page 33

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30 Strategy
Properties
At 31 March 2012 we occupied around 6,500 properties in the UK, and
around 1,720 properties in the rest of the world. The majority of the
UK properties are owned by – and leased from – Telereal Trillium, which
is part of the William Pears Group. Of the UK portfolio, 90% of the
properties are operational telephone exchanges which contain telecoms
equipment and are required as part of our continuing activities. Our
general purpose properties consist chiefly of offices, engineering depots
and data centres. Outside the UK, 90% of the properties are operational
sites housing data hosting and telecoms equipment. In 2012 we have
continued our programme of property rationalisation, consolidating
office space within the estate and disposing of redundant office and
operational buildings through cost transformation programmes.
Innovation
Innovation has always been at the core of our business. Our global
research and development activities are aligned with, and focused on,
supporting our strategy.
Creating attractive and competitive propositions for customers is
critical to our future. We access some of the best innovation from
around the world through our open innovation model. Our teams work
with customers, partners and universities in the US, Asia, Europe and
the Middle East, exposing us to more than 500 new technologies,
business propositions and market trends over the year. In 2012 we
filed patent applications for 65 inventions. We routinely seek patent
protection in different countries including the US and China, and we
currently maintain a total worldwide portfolio of over 5,000 patents
andapplications.
In 2012 we invested £560m (2011: £684m) in global research and
development to support our drive for innovation. The reduction
in expenditure compared with 2011 has been delivered through
better procurement, systems rationalisation, development efficiency
improvements and platforms reaching maturity. Our global
development centres, located in the UK, US and India, help us to draw
together key and complementary skills and resources (both internal
and third party) with the objective of increasing agility, efficiency and
delivery of innovation into the market. We are actively looking to invest
in establishing additional centres in new locations.
In 2012 we applied our research and development capability to a
number of areas including:
 increasing broadband coverage – we have been trialling innovative
new technologies to test their suitability for providing service in hard
to reach locations across the UK. For example, BT Wholesale trialled
fixed-mobile 4G LTE in Cornwall and Openreach performed trials
using TV white space radio technology to get better broadband to
locations on the Isle of Bute
Our resources
BT’s global network coverage
MPLS point of accessa
a Countries where BT, directly or working with partners, has an MPLS network service.
DSL access
Ethernet access
Satellite
City fibre networks
Network-to-network interface
Overview
BusinessStrategy
Performance
Governance
Financial statements
Additional information Overview
BusinessStrategy
Performance
Governance
Financial statements
Additional information