BT riding the new wave successfully

Stuart Corner
Tuesday, 01 August 2006 03:01

IT Industry - Strategy

Telstra's annual results, due on 10 August will be scrutinised closely to assess the impact of new wave services and the decline of traditional service such as the PSTN. Over in the UK, BT's latest results for the first quarter show that it is managing the transition well.

Overall revenue was three percent higher than a year ago at £4,864 million, but 'new wave' revenue grew 18 percent to £1,641 million and accounted for 34 percent of total revenue compared to 29 percent in the first quarter of last year. New wave revenue, according to BT is mainly generated from networked IT services, broadband and mobility.  Networked IT services revenue grew by  nine percent to £981 million, broadband revenue increased by 45 percent to £454 million and mobility revenue increased by eight percent to £71 million.

For traditional services the story was similar to Telstra's,  BT reported that revenue from the group’s traditional businesses declined by four percent continuing recent trends. "This reflects regulatory intervention, competition, price reductions and also technological changes that we are using to drive customers from traditional services to new wave services," the company said.

BT had 8.7 million wholesale broadband connections at June 30, 2006, an increase of 2.9 million connections year on year.  Over 40 percent of all UK homes now subscribe to broadband services.