BT to invest £6bn in faster broadband and 4G
BT has announced that it is to invest £6 billion in the provision of superfast broadband and improvement of 4G coverage, with the goal of reaching more than 95% of the population within four years.
The company said that the investment will help the UK to remain as the top digital country in the G20. BT also stated that it will be widening the reach of its ultrafast broadband services so as to benefit more than 12 million UK residential properties and commercial properties by 2020. The company plans to serve more than two million of these with fibre to the premises (FTTP) technology.
BT is also the new owner of EE, which announced last month that it will be ensuring that its 4G services reach 95% of the country in terms of geographical area, also by the end of 2020. At the present time, these services only cover 60% of the country in terms of geography.
The chief executive of the BT Group, Gavin Patterson, said that it is vital that the country stays at the top of digital technology in the future, and this is why the company has made the decision to invest £6 billion into the networks. He is calling upon other providers to invest in networks as BT is doing and as Virgin has promised to do. Mr Patterson commented that competition in infrastructure is good for the country, and he also pointed out the benefits of the Openreach model, which allows other companies to “piggyback” if they prefer.