BT 2015 Annual Report Download - page 35

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Overview
The Strategic Report
Purpose and strategy Delivering our strategy
0ur lines of business Group performance Governance Financial statements Additional information
Our networks and physical assets
ur networs service platfors and  sstes are the
foundations of the products our custoers rel on around
the world.
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Our global reach
ur lobal networ provides service to ore than 10 countries and
is supported b in-countr networs and infrastructure. ost of our
networ assets are in the UK and urope. e continue to selectivel
epand the reach of our networ to support ultinational copanies
inother reions.
he scale and reach of our lobal ulti-protocol label switchin 
networ is a e copetitive dierentiator. his sinle -based networ
lets our custoer-facin lines of business launch and sell products
and services uicl and cost-eectivel without needin to invest
indedicated infrastructure for each product.
o serve our ultinational custoers we oer our virtual private
networ  services. o provide these we use our  networ
and a cobination of owned and leased fibre connections to
interconnect our points of presence os around the world. or the
final connection into the custoers preises we either use our own
eistin circuits or rent connections fro telecos operators in that
countr. e also have an etensive satellite networ which provides
custoers with connectivit around the world includin to reote
andhard-to-reachlocations.
ur lobal  chane platfor  continues to do well. round
00 service providers are connected to it loball and this ear we
launched a new node servin the iddle ast.
In-country networks
e have etensive networs in the UK as well as in eran tal
theetherlands the epublic of reland and pain.
ur UK fied-line networ is one of our ost valuable assets and our
investent in fibre broadband is e to deliverin odern superfast
services to our custoers. o eet the deand fro businesses we
are continuin to epand the availabilit of thernet. nd when our
custoers are awa fro their hoe or oce the can use one of
orethan   i-fi hotspots.
Developments this year
his ear we have
 iproved our UK broadband networ at the sae tie as reducin its
runnin costs. e have ade it ore resilient to faults and it can now
better cater for increases in trac. nd we have continued to etend
the reach of our fibre networ see pae 
 enaed with our  partner  to develop new obile services
that allowed  onsuer to re-enter the obile aret
 been developin the core networ sstes and radio infrastructure to
be able to use our own  spectru. his wor focuses on sall-cell
in-buildin solutions
 built the sstes that will la the foundation for the net eneration
of -based counication and future voice services
 rationalised our voice and leac data networs so we are usin less
euipent and less ener and
 siplified the technolo we use to provide all of our lobal networ
services  onnect thernet onnect and nternet onnect.
usin a sinle networ router rather than one for each service
we are able to reduce the cost of introducin these services. his has
enabled us to oer thernet onnect and nternet onnect in eiht
new countries and  new cities on our own networ this ear.
Service platforms
e run a nuber of service platfors that cobine our networ and 
resources to underpin an of the e products we oer. hese include
 BT Conferencing which we oer to our custoers around the world.
 eete is our audio conferencin service. t is also available with
olb oice for hiher ualit sound and a better user eperience.
 BT Cloud Contact one of our contact centre solutions. or eaple
this has helped tihad irwas better serve their custoers. allers
fro  dierent countries are autoaticall directed to the riht
lanuae tea in an one of three lobal contact centres.
 Our BT TV platform which we have invested further in to support a
rowin nuber of custoers and to increase the rane of services we
can deliver. e have added red button interactive features. ur new
tra o service provides ulti-roo viewin. nd our people have
ipleented the technolo to support our  verwhere service
and ensure hroecast and eti services are copatible with  .
IT systems
ur internal  sstes enable us to anae our processes handle
custoer inforation and deliver our products and services. he are
critical to servin our custoers and runnin our business.
or eaple our custoer anaeent sstes hold our custoer
and billin inforation. he include the technolo that is used when
custoers call a contact centre and behind our online custoer portals.
e are ain our sstes sipler. nd we are continuin to
innovate. ast ear we launched a sste to analse our own i ata.
e have seen the benefits of it this ear. t has provided reater insiht
into potential line faults which has reduced the nuber of unnecessar
enineer visits.
e currentl have around  petabtes of data storae infrastructure
spread across several sites. f this storae was full of -encoded
sons the would tae about 0000 ears to pla. e epect the
aount of data that we store to row. espite this we are worin on
reducin the nuber of data centres we run reovin older server
technolo and usin fewer  applications. e are able to do this while
increasin our storae capacit b usin virtualisation. his increases
our data centre utilisation b runnin an virtual achines on
eachserver.
e are incorporatin an innovations into our data centres to
iprove perforance and power ecienc as well as reduce cost.
evelopents such as adaptive power anaeent and hotcold aisle
isolation help us to reduce power usae. hese and other proraes
will help us cut our  ener use over the coin ears.
Properties
e occup around 0 properties in the UK and around 10 in the
rest of the world. ost of our UK properties are owned b and leased
fro elereal rilliu part of the illia ears roup after we entered
into a sale and leasebac arraneent with the in 001.
ur freehold sites include our ain strateic buildins  entre the 
ower and our  facilit dastral ar in uol.
f our UK properties 9 are operational housin telecos and
broadband euipent. he rest are oces custoer contact centres
enineerin depots data centres and our  port  studio.
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