BT 2016 Annual Report Download - page 83

Overview The Strategic Report Governance Financial statements Additional information
87
Performance in the year
We’ve grown our revenue for the first time in four years.
We made our superfast fibre broadband network available
to a further 3m premises. We achieved record fibre
broadband net additions of 1.7m. We grew Ethernet
connections by 17%. And we achieved all the increased
minimum service levels set by Ofcom, though our ambition
and plans are to go much further.
• We announced the Openreach Charter to set out our commitments
in building Britain’s connected future.
• We’ve improved customer service and complaints have almost halved,
though we recognise we have more to do.
• We’ve successfully launched the ‘View My Engineer’ service to keep end
customers up to date on their orders or any faults, and to remind them
of their upcoming engineer visit.
Examples of how we’re broadening
and deepening customer relationships
Operating performance
We continue to invest heavily in our superfast fibre broadband
network. It now reaches more than 25m premises or around 85%
of the UK. Including other service providers, 90% of the UK is able
to enjoy fibre broadband speeds.
Under the BDUK programme we’re investing alongside public
funding to bring fibre broadband to rural communities. We’re also
working with the government through the Superfast Extension
Programme (SEP) to help take fibre broadband to 95% of the
country by the end of 2017.
We achieved 1.7m fibre broadband net additions in the year. This
means that around 5.9m homes and businesses in the UK are now
connected, 23% of those passed. Of the net additions in the year,
48% were provided to our external CP customers, an increase from
40% last year, demonstrating the market‑wide demand for fibre.
Openreach bre broadband net additions
Year ended 31 March
Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4
2015 2016
000
0
100
200
300
400
600
500
The number of Ethernet circuits we provide grew 17% in the
year; this is the best growth for five years. The physical line base
increased by 2,000.
Deliver superior customer service
As the internet has become a must-have, customers
expect more from the service we provide and we’re
committed to meeting those increasing needs.
The table on page 88 shows Openreach’s service performance on
a number of key measures. We publish this data, with additional
levels of detail, on a quarterly basis.
We continue to deliver 93% of orders on time. We met all 60 of
Ofcom’s minimum service levels (MSLs) for copper products for the
second year in a row. These service levels become more stretching
each year and next year will expand to cover Ethernet products for
the first time.
Despite having achieved the MSLs our key customer service
measure, Right First Time, declined 6.9% (2014/15: 3.5%
improvement). We view the MSLs as a baseline and recognise
we have more to do to deliver the service customers expect.
This is why we set ourselves a more challenging RFT target.
There are a few areas in particular, along with the severity of
the winter storms, that contributed to the decline in RFT. In the
business market we haven’t reduced the backlog of Ethernet
circuits in line with our plans. For residential customers we have
too many jobs that aren’t completed on time which is partially due
to our engineers missing appointments. We have a plan in place to
tackle many of the issues that caused us problems this year. We’re
improving Ethernet delivery processes to complete jobs faster and
we’re focusing on reducing missed appointments.
One area of improvement was the backlog of new property
developments waiting for a network connection. Over the year we
reduced the number of people waiting more than 30 days
for service after moving into a new home by 96%.
In the coming year our goal is to make sure people are connected
on the day they move. We also recognise that most people moving
into a new home expect to have access to fibre broadband and we
launched a co-funding scheme with the Home Builders Federation
to make sure all new builds have fibre available.
This can be found at:
www.homeandwork.openreach.co.uk/OurResponsibilities.aspx