John Anderson, BT Regional Director

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1 It s been a season of transformation. From the wettest of summers, we ve emerged into the golden glow of an Olympic extravaganza. London 2012 captured the public imagination, and has delivered a massive boost in confidence. BT continues to make big steps forward in its ambition to roll out fibre broadband to more areas of the UK. We have been selected as a BDUK framework supplier, putting us in the right position to bid for regional and local tenders. North Yorkshire, England s largest rural county, has secured BDUK funding for fibre broadband roll-out, and selected to work with BT to extend beyond the commercial roll-out. Meanwhile, Surrey has signed a similar deal that will see it become the best connected county in the UK. In addition, the Welsh government and BT have announced the largest partnership of its kind, and will use public and private funds to help Wales become a global leader in fibre broadband. We re also hugely proud of our role as official communications services partner of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. Our single network for games-critical applications, LOCOG and the media covered 94 venues, and the world enjoyed the benefits of BT s teamwork and world-class communications services. So much has been learnt in the last few months about speedy, cost-effective fibre deployment, and we want to share these experiences with you. Working in partnership, we can help bring Olympic-quality fibre broadband to your local community. Now that we understand how much we really can achieve when we all pull together, it s time to get busy. me at john.k.anderson@bt.com. On our marks, get set John Anderson, BT Regional Director Lead message Great news for SMEs as BT announces FTTP on Demand trials Fibre broadband boost for North Yorkshire Stay up to speed Partnership celebrates 10,000th customer Great news for SMEs as BT announces FTTP on Demand trials Small and medium-sized businesses across the UK are set to benefit from Openreach s new FTTP on Demand service, which could help them compete both at home and abroad as well as maintain and create jobs. Aimed at the most demanding users, it supplies customers in an area currently only served by FTTC technology with an ultra-fast broadband connection directly to their home or business. That provides another option for SMEs who need higher speeds digital media organisations being one example and who are potentially willing to pay the extra deployment costs. Openreach has chosen eight locations across the UK where it will pilot FTTP on Demand, which is intended to be commercially available from spring So that Openreach has enough time to address the challenges in deploying the service with its Communications Provider (CP) customers, the pilot is being held in two phases. Phase one, which will test the planning and construction process, began in July 2012 and will run to early It will allow participating CPs to order a 330Mbps downstream and either 20 or 30Mbps upstream service in parts of High Wycombe, Bristol South, St Agnes (Cornwall) and Edinburgh. Phase two, which will run from March to May 2013, will test new automated order processes, and focus on the 330Mbps downstream/30mbps upstream product. This phase will see the pilot extended to parts of Watford, Cardiff, Basingstoke and Manchester Central. CPs will assist Openreach with the installation cost. However, it will then be up to them whether to absorb that likely one-off charge, recover it through higher monthly prices or pass it on in full to their customers. Openreach team fires up demand for Fibre Broadband Breaking records: London 2012 Openreach swells ranks with ex-armed forces personnel Leeds City Region hails BT s investment in training

2 Fibre broadband boost for North Yorkshire North Yorkshire is celebrating securing Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds to deploy fibre broadband, which is expected to help boost its economy and create or protect local jobs. One of the most rural counties in England, North Yorkshire has a current average downstream speed of 6.6Mbps, with 17 per cent of premises receiving less than 2Mbps. Now, its County Council has inked a deal with BT that will give 90 per cent of its homes and businesses some 365,000 premises access to speeds of up to 80Mbps by the end of Ultra-fast speeds of up to 330Mbps will also be deployed in certain areas, and made available on demand throughout the entire fibre footprint should local businesses want to upgrade. The remaining 10 per cent of premises will see a speed uplift too, with the project aiming to deliver 2Mbps or more by the end of 2014 to all homes and businesses. The initiative will take the total amount invested in North Yorkshire fibre broadband to around 70 million. We have already committed around 23 million, and will now contribute a further 10 million towards deployment in non-commercial areas million will come from BDUK funds, and the remaining 8.6 million from the European Regional Development Fund (EDFR). A similar contract has also just been signed in Surrey. BT, Surrey County Council and BDUK are funding an ambitious project which, by the end of 2014, will provide almost 100 per cent of its homes and businesses with access to speeds of up to 80Mbps. And under a new deal recently done in Wales, contributions from BT and BDUK will help bring fibre broadband to 96 per cent of premises there by the end of John Moore (left), of North Yorkshire County Council, and Bill Murphy sign the Connecting North Yorkshire contract Bill Murphy, Managing Director of BT Next Generation Access, said: It is fantastic to see North Yorkshire, the BDUK pilot, cross the finishing line. The race to provide the UK with the best superfast broadband network in Europe by 2015 is still very much on, and we re looking forward to working with other local authorities and regions to bring the economic benefits of high speed broadband to businesses and communities everywhere. Stay up-to-speed BT has announced to date that 116 exchanges in Yorkshire and the Humber will benefit from our investment in fibre broadband. In total, these exchanges serve over 1.2 million homes and businesses* 82 are already accepting orders with 10 due in December, and 6 due in 2013* * For the latest information on superfast fibre broadband availability for exchanges up and down the country visit

3 Partnership celebrates 10,000th customer Cornwall s 100,000th customer Arcol team An electronics manufacturer has become the 10,000th business to benefit from a pioneering broadband private and public sector partnership. ARCOL UK Ltd recently signed up for fibre optic broadband, and as a result has seen speeds rocket 60-fold. Established in 1952, ARCOL produces and sells up to four million power resistors a year in more than 30 countries worldwide. Its products have been utilised in major projects including Olympic infrastructure and NASA missions, and the higher broadband speeds are already playing a role in the firm s growing global success. Alun Morgan, ARCOL s technical director, said: Our experience of fibre broadband so far is really superb. The previous broadband line was giving us a download speed of around 1.5 Mbps, whereas our new fibre connection is regularly providing 92 Mbps of data throughput a colossal difference, which is giving us the ability to do everything much more quickly. The new fibre optic technology is helping ARCOL to reduce costs, work more efficiently and flexibly and build stronger relationships with its customers. We need to have the ability to constantly reach out to our customers, whether the medium is IP (Internet Protocol) telephony, video-conferencing or online chat. Superfast broadband has given us many more avenues to cement these important relationships. All of our sales and purchasing teams have ipads and soon, thanks to our greatly enhanced broadband, they will be able to use them to log in to our office network via an interactive portal. Not only will this result in immediate processing of transactions, but it will enable issues or queries to be resolved more quickly and efficiently. Superfast broadband even gave us the chance to base a salesman in Buckinghamshire in order to service the UK market more effectively. Our new fibre broadband and his own fibre connection allows him to access our systems many times more quickly. Nigel Ashcroft, programme director of Superfast Cornwall for Cornwall Development Company, which is managing the 132 million partnership, added: Arcol becoming our 10,000th customer is another major milestone in the rapid development of the Superfast Cornwall programme. To find out more about the programme, visit Openreach team fires up demand for Fibre Broadband Openreach is utilising its massive presence in local communities to highlight one of the biggest changes in communication technology. A team within the division are offering councils and Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) professional marketing and consultancy services to help them stimulate demand for fibre broadband. They provide various levels of support and are highly skilled at tailoring the information to both the business and consumer audience. Services range from supplying basic marketing tools such as stickers for street cabinets and banners for web pages, linking to the hugely popular superfast right through to full-scale project management and integrated PR activities, such as TV, radio and events. In every area they target, the team arrange for localised flyers to be distributed by their engineers and Next Generation Access (NGA) Champions-who are all passionate about spreading the news about fibre broadband. It doesn t stop there, on offer are design services to local groups, as well as region specific brochures and collateral. All with the aim of making residents aware that fibre broadband is available and ready for them to start enjoying the services and speeds from a number of Communication Providers. If you are interested in working with Openreach and want to tap into their expertise in generating community awareness of fibre broadband please contact your regional partnership director Trevor Higgins. Trevor.higgins@bt.com or Jackie Hasted, General Manager, NGA Demand Stimulation, Jackie.hasted@ openreach.co.uk.

4 Breaking records: London 2012 BT put in an incredible performance this summer to ensure that the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games were the most connected Games ever. Plus it brought the excitement of the Games to a wider audience by hosting numerous free events that attracted millions of fans. These activities have been noted by politicians and business leaders, who named BT as the company that has provided the greatest corporate contribution to the success of the Games (independent research by TLG/ Populus). In terms of greatest positive change to a company s reputation as a result of its sponsorship, we were placed second. As official communications services partner of London 2012, we designed and delivered a single, integrated communications network a first for a Summer Games spanning 94 locations, with a critical Games-time service availability of %. To put this in context, three suppliers were used in Beijing to deliver a network with a far smaller capacity. During the Games: The official London 2012 website, which we hosted, had more than 450 million visits four times as many as the Beijing Games website in Internet traffic over BT s retail broadband network increased by 38% in Yorkshire (compared to normal usage figures) on Tuesday 7 August as Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee (who are BT Ambassadors) won gold and bronze medals. We provided services such as internet, , fixed-line telephony and mobile services to LOCOG and the 27,500 accredited media. Our fibre-based network delivered TV coverage from the majority of venues to the International Broadcast Centre for transmission across the world. We provided the Athletes Village with the most advanced fibre broadband in the UK, allowing the athletes to get online at ultra-fast speeds for free. As well as underpinning the delivery of the Games, we have also been one of the most active sponsors. More than five million people watched the Games at BT-sponsored Live Sites across the UK, and over one million fans attended BT London Live at Hyde Park, Victoria Park and Trafalgar Square. Around 70,000 fans watched Mo Farah s 5,000 metre win in Hyde Park, for example, while Team GB and Paralympics GB medal winners appeared at the venues to share their success with enthusiastic audiences. In addition, we put on dozens of free musical performances, with major acts such as Blur, the Specials and Snow Patrol thrilling huge crowds in Hyde Park at the opening and closing nights of the Olympic Games. Plus, in the lead-up to the Games, we sponsored BT River of Music, a major cultural event held at six iconic venues along the Thames which featured performers from 205 nations. The company is also proud to have supported numerous athletes over the years. These include Jonnie Peacock, Hannah Cockcroft, Oscar Pistorius and the Brownlee brothers, to name but a few. Many of them are only just becoming household names, and so might have struggled without the financial support we provided. John Anderson congratulates medal winning triathletes Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee on their return to their home town of Leeds. Seb Coe, Chairman, LOCOG, said: It is inconceivable that we could have delivered the 2012 Games without BT on board. We needed someone we could trust and who could provide the technical know-how and the creative solutions to ensure the London 2012 Games were the very best they could be. BT gave us all of this.

5 Openreach swells ranks with ex-armed forces personnel As it prepares to deploy even more fibre broadband infrastructure across the UK, Openreach is to recruit 400 extra engineers, with most of the new posts expected to be filled by ex-armed forces personnel. This will take the total number of engineers hired in 2012 to more than 1,000, following the employment of around 600 in the first half of the year. The new recruits will join a mobile workforce, reacting quickly to changes in service requirements from communications providers and helping to tackle peaks in demand for fibre broadband around the country. Significantly, this workforce is composed of engineers who aren t confined to one geography, but who are instead prepared to work where the need is greatest thereby providing greater flexibility. Over the past two years, Openreach has taken on many hundreds of ex-armed forces personnel, and has benefited hugely from the skills, experience, flexibility and enthusiasm they have brought with them. It comes as no surprise, then, that the business is keen to fill many of these new roles with similar candidates. Leeds City Region hails BT s investment in training BT has an excellent reputation for investing in skills and training. It therefore comes as no surprise that the Yorkshire and Humber regional board are backing the Leeds City region s Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) campaign, which is urging local businesses and organisations to do the same is an LEP initiative which aims to help the area s businesses and economy grow by encouraging more companies to invest in skills and training. Research shows that companies that train are more likely to succeed than those that dont, while companies that dont train are more than twice as likely to fail as those that do. The Leeds City region s website uses BT as an example case study, highlighting our links with education through our Work Inspiration programme. Regional board member Zulfi Hussain led our involvement in the programme, which is co-ordinated by Business in the Community (BITC) to provide meaningful work experience for young people. We have been a keen supporter from the start, with over 8,000 young people coming to us for work experience since Plus we have established various initiatives of our own, including apprenticeship and graduate recruitment programmes as well as a scheme that encourages women to take up engineering careers. Zulfi feels Work Inspiration, which has become an award-winning, flagship programme for the company, has had significant benefits for everyone involved. There is a perception among employers that too many young people enter the world of work lacking employability skills, while young people tend to have little or no understanding of their path into work or the range of jobs open to them, she said. We ve been able to give young people some real hands-on experience and practical knowledge which we feel is invaluable as they prepare to plan for their future. And it s not just good for the youngsters involved it also helps BT people develop and enhance their own skills by working with young people from a very diverse range of backgrounds. It s good for our business, good for our employees and good for young people. To find out more about the campaign, and to sign up, go to fivethreeone.htm