Statement re Broadband

BT Group PLC
27 April 2004


NR0421
April 27, 2004


                         BT PRESSES BROADBAND ACCELERATOR

          UK to have near universal broadband coverage by summer 2005


BT today announced plans to speed up the delivery of broadband services to rural
communities. These plans will make the UK a world leader for broadband
availability.

          BT is to systematically rollout ADSL broadband to a further 1,128
exchanges by no later than summer 2005.  This will help bring broadband to
exchanges serving 99.6 per cent of UK homes and businesses.

          The new approach replaces the broadband registration trigger scheme
that has helped BT match investment to demand since July 2002.

Alison Ritchie, BT chief broadband officer, said: "BT has continued to innovate
in order to drive broadband as an enabler for tomorrow's society and to deliver
a truly Broadband Britain.

"The broadband registration scheme has been a powerful tool for us to match
investment to demand and its fantastic success, with the support of local
campaigners, has set the way for other countries to follow.

"Now, as we move into more and more rural areas and we have a clearer picture of
growing demand, there are real benefits to be gained through a planned roll out.
This means we can deliver broadband to far more people in a shorter timeframe.

"This approach also means we can use the best engineering solution for the whole
network to efficiently manage costs and future growth.

"Together with our plans to extend the reach of broadband from a local exchange,
this takes us significantly closer to universal availability."

          The rollout programme will be announced in detail by the end of June
and will help BT bring forward some published broadband switch-on dates.

Alison Ritchie added: "The impact that local campaigners have had has been
phenomenal - their efforts have meant take-up rates on trigger exchanges have
exceeded those for exchanges that were enabled before the registration scheme.
These local heroes have helped change the market and this in turn has
contributed to our decision to take this approach."

BT Wholesale is working with service providers so people will be able to place
their orders as soon as the go live date for their exchange is fixed.  The
certainty brought by this approach will also help service providers with their
longer term business planning and marketing activities.

Today's announcement will deliver broadband to every exchange in the UK except
for the very smallest which between them account for less than 100,000 premises.
BT will continue to seek to work in partnership with public sector and other
organisations to find suitable ways of delivering broadband to these exchanges.
BT has developed or is developing several products that are suitable including
wireless and satellite broadband as well as the Exchange Activate community
broadband solution.


Notes to editors -

The innovative demand registration scheme launched in July 2002 has been a major
driver in BT's rollout of broadband services with more than 880,000 individual
registrations leading to the upgrade of more than 2,000 exchanges. The scheme
will have taken broadband availability from 66 per cent in July 2002 to more
than 90 per cent when all the triggered exchanges previously in the upgrade
programme are completed.

The broadband registration scheme will cease with immediate effect - those
exchanges that have already triggered will have dates set as soon as possible.
BT will also set dates for all exchanges within ten per cent of their triggers
so that these can also go into immediate build. BT plans to announce the phasing
of the rollout for the remaining trigger exchanges by the end of June 2004.

BT hopes to build on its relationship with local broadband campaigners to tap
the energy and commitment they have shown on availability issues and encourage
them to act as champions to help their communities get the most out of the
technology.


About BT

BT Group plc is the listed holding company for an integrated group of businesses
providing voice, data and video services in the UK and elsewhere in Europe.
British Telecommunications plc, a wholly owned subsidiary of BT Group, holds
virtually all businesses and assets of the BT group.

BT is one of Europe's leading providers of telecommunications services.  Its
principal activities include local, national and international
telecommunications services, higher-value broadband and Internet products and
services, and IT solutions.  In the UK, BT serves over 20 million business and
residential customers with more than 29 million exchange lines, as well as
providing network services to other licensed operators.

BT consists principally of three lines of business:

•    BT Retail, serving businesses and residential customers and including
     BT Openworld, one of the UK's leading ISPs.

•    BT Wholesale, providing network services and solutions within the UK,
     including ADSL, conveyance, transit, bulk delivery of private circuits, 
     frame relay and ISDN connections.

•    BT Global Services, BT's managed services and solutions provider, serving 
     multi-site organisations worldwide.  Its core target market is the top
     10,000 global multi-site organisations with European operations.

There are a number of other businesses within the BT group, including BT Exact,
an internationally renowned centre of excellence in IT and networking
technologies. It is also BT's technology and research and development business.

In the year ended 31 March 2003, BT's turnover was £18,727m. with profit before
taxation of £1,829m. For more information, visit www.bt.com


Inquiries about this news release should be made to the BT Group newsroom on its 
24 hour number: 020 7356 5369.  From outside the UK, dial [phone].  All 
          BT Group news releases can be accessed at our web site:

                             www.bt.com/newscentre


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            The company news service from the London Stock Exchange           FFDSSIRFIS