The Hermes Project

Giffgaff's marketing video

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:55:00 +0000

Mobile operator Giffgaff, who promote their services via a proposition where the company's own customers offer help and support themselves in return for rewards, have today published a new marketing campaign that they are clearly hoping will go viral - but is very very amusing all the same:
It is not known how much the O2-owned operator is paying for Keith Harris to front the commercial.

Virgin shows their broadband future

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 20:35:00 +0000

As part of their fascinating investor presentation [PDF] alongside the company's 4th quarter financial results, Virgin Media have revealed what their current customer base will look like once translated into the context of their 18 month speed doubling programme:The grey boxes emphasise what their customer base will look like by late next year, and the boxes to the right show the current performance of DSL providers (going by Ofcom's latest independent speedtest results) against the cable company's current and future average speeds.

Virgin's investor slides also showed that their broadband service's performance is cutting through with the company's subscribers, with 3% more of them being advocates for the broadband product (as measure by their Net Promoter Score) at the end of the quarter compared to how it looked in September.

In other interesting snippets from their slide deck, consumer demand is still on the increase with a 45% compound annual growth rate in usage having been seen over the last 6 years - and no signs that it will dissipate into the future:
With Cisco having forecast that 90% of broadband traffic will be video by the end of the decade, that curve is only going to go one way.

Virgin Q4 Results

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 12:02:00 +0000

Virgin Media were the last of the 'big' four of the country's broadband providers to release (PDF version here is a bit more easily readable) their fourth quarter (and full year 2011) financial results, and in a nice touch they also did it on 5th anniversary of the company being launched back in 2007.

In the last quarter of the year they added (net) 30k broadband customers to take their overall customer base to 4.3511 million (4.1029m on their cable service, 248.2k on their 'National' DSL service) and in fact they signed up a total of 133,000 broadband customers in the quarter (the difference consisting of those customers who have left the company) and 579,000 overall in the year - where the company returned its first profit since launch.

Over half of Virgin's new subscribers in the quarter chose to take speeds of 30Mb or more - which is an encouraging measure of the demand for faster speeds, given their 18-month speed doubling programme - and now almost 1.2Mb of their customers are on speeds of 20Mb or faster (700k on 30Mb or faster, 200k on 50Mb or 100Mb - the latter being up 67% year on year).

Earlier this week Virgin announced that the completion of their 100Mb rollout will now be done by the late Spring, ahead of its original schedule and 10 million homes in the UK are able to get the fastest widely available broadband speed in the country. Virgin also reported strong demand for their TiVo connected TV service in their results.

Virgin is undertaking investor presentations this afternoon, out of which more information will no doubt flow - but one piece of news they have already announced today is the addition of 620 roles to the firm, 500 of which are coming in customer service functions (mainly in Swansea and Manchester) and the remaining 120 will come from the latest intake of the company's apprenticeship scheme for field engineers to install customers on and maintain their network.

The apprenticeship scheme is in its fourth year at the company, resulting in 530 apprentices taking up permanent roles in the business.

Welcoming the intake the company's Chief Customer & Networks Officer Paul Buttery said:

"The new jobs that we've announced today will ensure we're meeting the increasing demand for our next generation digital products and will help our customers get the kind of service they expect from a Virgin company.

This investment will benefit a number of communities across the country and we're particularly proud that we're able to provide so many young people with a much needed start in these challenging economic times."

The customer service staff are joining Virgin over coming weeks and will go through an extensive 6 week training and induction process before being let loose on customers!

What impact will the Olympics have on the UK Internet?

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:43:00 +0000

No doubt this will be one that generates plenty of conspiracy theories, but The Observer raised the interesting question at the weekend as to what impact the London 2012 Olympics will have on Internet access in the UK - particularly when there are surges of usage during the daytime with people watching coverage online.

Their coverage came after a Cabinet Office paper was published warning businesses that they needed to make serious consideration for flexible working practices during the period of the games, when large parts of London will also be in lockdown preventing telecoms companies from undertaking much regular network maintenance also.

The paper warns businesses:

"It is possible that internet services may be slower during the Games or, in very severe cases, there may be dropouts due to an increased number of people accessing the internet.

[ISPs] may introduce data caps during peak times to try to spread the loading and give a more equal service to their entire customer base."

Government departments are trialling large scale home working initiatives ahead of plans to have as many staff as possible not coming into Central London during the games, seemingly with mixed results on trials so far thanks to staff experiencing Internet connection problems.

Intel to spend $120m on RealNetworks patents

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:42:00 +0000

RealNetworks are one of those companies who you remember well from the early days of the Internet going mass market thanks to their video technology like RealPlayer, which has now largely been eclipsed by other more popular ways of video being streamed online.

The fact that they have been around for ever in Internet terms (having been founded in 1995) means that they have one thing very attractive given the current litigious nature of interaction between tech giants - patents.

Intel have now agreed to buy a "significant number" (around 190 patents and 170 patent applications) from RealNetworks in a USD$120m deal which also includes some video codec software.

Whilst the patents will both help Intel develop their own products and protect them in any patent wars, RealNetworks have also secured certain rights to continue to use the patents in current and future products according to their chief executive Thomas Nielsen:

"Selling these patents to Intel unlocks some of the substantial and unrealized value of RealNetworks assets. It represents an extraordinary opportunity for us to generate additional capital to boost investments in new businesses and markets while still protecting our existing business."

Street View expands to include view inside pubs

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:41:00 +0000

Follow this link for an interesting experience - the controversial Street View service from Google is now going inside buildings, with this image of what a pub looks like on the inside adding immeasurably to the usefulness of the service:Presumably the pub's doors were big enough to fit the Street View car through :-)

The Smart Window

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Whilst the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas each year has to an extent become a willy waving contest (We're more innovative than you! No, pick me!) between vendors of products that they will never actually launch in the mass market, one of the interesting things that is going into production was showcased by Samsung at this year's show - the semi transparent smart window, which is demonstrated in this YouTube video:
The smart windows go into production from later this year and there's no word on the price of them yet, but you can see them being of particular use in kitchens in the home where a lot more than watching TV (such as looking up recipes, tweeting etc) can be done whilst the cook of the home is completing the evening's meal.

O2 kills off access to The Cloud for their customers

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:40:00 +0000

Mobile operator O2 have very quietly disabled free access to WiFi Hotspots operated by The Cloud (Sky) for their customers, which is no doubt an after effect of them winning the concession for the Westminster, Kensington & Chelsea hotspot network in what is becoming a fiercely competitive sector that O2, Sky, Virgin Media and BT are battling for land grab in.

Before the start of this month O2 customers were able to get free access to their own hotspots as well as those of BT Openzone as well as The Cloud, but the latter disappeared at the start of this month without notification to their customers other than a page hidden away on their website.

As various companies start winning concessions in places like Birmingham and on the London Underground (The Cloud already having the concession for the Square Mile and BT for the Olympic Village) it will be fascinating to see if such fractured propositions become typical in the metropolitan WiFi Hotspot space.

BlackBerry co-CEOs resign

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 22:39:00 +0000

These have been tough times for BlackBerry manufacturer Research In Motion (RIM), who have been hit by being surpassed by competitors in the smartphone market in terms of the functionality and innovation of both devices and operating systems - and the company is still recovering in the eyes of both its consumer and corporate customers after last year's three day global outage to their services caused by a problem at their data centre in Slough.

With the company also subject to takeover speculation, now is not a time to have a confusing corporate structure - a problem they have resolved thanks to the announcement that their bizarre model of having two executives has ended with co-CEOs Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie step down from their roles - although they will still have seats on the company's board without operational responsibilities.

Former chief operating officer Thorsten Heins replaced them and said:

"As with any company that has grown as fast as we have, there have been inevitable growing pains.

We have learned from those challenges and, I believe, we have and will become a stronger company as a result."

Balsillie and Lazaridis were also company co-Chairmen, a role that Barbara Stymiest has assumed. Stymiest has been on the company's board since 2007.

Tesco caught undercutting own online prices to compete

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:45:00 +0000

Tesco have been found to be undercutting prices on their own website to sell a range of goods - including computer games and DVDs - via Amazon using a lesser known subsidiary of the company trading as Oakwood Distribution Limited.

The scheme, uncovered by The Mail on Sunday, uncovered examples such as Downton Abbey retailing on Amazon for £8.69 (£7.43 + £1.26 delivery) whilst the same title was being retailed on Tesco's own website at £9.97.

Other examples cited include:
Pressure groups have pointed out that they believe the practice to be dishonest, particularly when some consumers choose to not buy from Tesco given how much they dominate the UK's retail spend and are seen by some to hamper locally produced goods and services with their business practices.

Defending the practice, Tesco said:

"It is public knowledge that Oakwood is part of Tesco. Where we have excess stock it is sold competitively through third-party marketplaces. Many customers prefer to shop direct with Tesco for additional benefits."

At least Amazon have now deployed a new 'Detailed Seller Information' button that allows consumers to be more informed about exactly who they are buying from on their site.

Sainsbury's rebrands 'Tiger' bread after social campaign

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:24:00 +0000

How far and how quickly social media can spread a campaign virally has been shown with a lovely story about a 3-and-a-half year old who wrote to Sainsbury's asking why their 'Tiger' bread was so named when it actually looked more like a giraffe.

The girl got a brilliant response from a customer service manager at he firm agreeing with her, and after the letters were published online a viral campaign has led to the supermarket rebranding the bread accordingly, with them explaining how they were overwhelmed by the responses about the exchange:

"The exchange started trending on Twitter and eventually died down. Last week, the exchange between Lily and Chris suddenly became a topic of conversation on social media networks again. Thousands of Tweets, Facebook likes and shares, hundreds of blog posts, phone calls from customers mentioned the exchange and commended us for this great piece of customers service.

At the time of writing, this single post on Facebook about the tiger bread letters was liked over 150,000 times and shared over 48,000 times."

The customer service manager, Chris King, has now returned to University to train as a primary school teacher and will no doubt do well. In his letter to the girl he signed off as being "(27 & 1/3)".

LLU lines top 8 million

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:23:00 +0000

Ofcom has reported a significant milestone in the UK telecoms market - the passing of the 8 million mark for LLU unbundled lines, that is where broadband providers supply their services over BT's Openreach access infrastructure using their own equipment installed in BT exchanges.

LLU is used by the likes of Sky and TalkTalk to offer broadband services to consumers in a way that is both cheaper than connections supplied by BT Wholesale for the provider and at a lower cost to the consumer, but the interesting question is as to whether this will now be the last such milestone hit with fibre connections becoming the next major development in the broadband market - Virgin Media and BT Infinity already adding customers at a pace and Sky having recently announced their own plans to sell fibre delivered faster speeds at a £20 premium (initially at least).

At present though LLU lines - which stood at a mere 123,000 in 2005 - are still on the increase month by month as providers seek to eke out the long tail of customers still on the BT Wholesale infrastructure and move them across to their own networks:
Ofcom claims that LLU-driven competition in the broadband market has led to consumers paying half what they did for their broadband access in 2005.

TalkTalk Q4 Results

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:35:00 +0000

TalkTalk were the third of the 'big four' broadband providers - the fourth, Virgin Media, announce their financial results tomorrow - to post their Q4 and year end financial results this morning, and the big headline is that their customers are continuing to 'walk walk' from the provider - although they are continuing to shore up their financials so that the overall impact to them is limited.

TalkTalk's total broadband customer base shrunk by 43k in the 4th quarter (interestingly exactly the same number left in the third quarter) and their overall broadband base now stands at 4.079m punters - but they continue to have more customers on their unbundled network so the financial impact was negated, 90% of their customers (3.678m) now being on their LLU unbundled network (up 17k in the quarter).

Almost 3m (2.966m) of their customers are now on fully unbundled lines (meaning they are taking broadband and phone services over the TalkTalk network rather than any BT Wholesale powered solution, a number that increased an impressive 287k in the last 12 months as TalkTalk focused on making their existing customers more profitable.

In the quarter TalkTalk unbundled a further 130 BT exchanges to take the total to 2,338 - and they aim to cover 93% of the population with their LLU network by next year.

Churn (customer leaving the company) is under control they say, with a 26% year-on-year decline in customer service calls in the last 12 months as a result of the service improvement programme they have put in place following a record fine from Ofcom and 60% of customer contacts are now online. TalkTalk expects to return to positive customer growth in the first half of this year.

TalkTalk also updated on consumer takeup of their 'HomeSafe' network based security offering which they were using to claim that they had the UK's 'safest' broadband before the ASA ruled that they could not justify the claim. A further 60k of their customers activated the controversial service in the quarter, to take their overall activated base to 270k - or less than 7% of the company's broadband punters.

The company's financials were boosted by a 9.5% increase in line rental cost from October and also the increased proportion of customers taking their £14.50 'Plus' broadband package, which has doubled its base in the year to 22% (883k) of the company's customers. Around a third of new customers now take their top tier proposition.

Despite BT seeing strong demand for their 'Infinity' faster broadband service (they now have over 400k customers on the service), TalkTalk report that they are still seeing a limited demand for fibre based faster broadband - which is no doubt indicative of their focus at the 'value' (i.e. cheapest) end of the broadband market. They only had 5k customers on the FTTC based service at the end of the quarter, up from 3k in the quarter previous.

The press release of the results can be found here [PDF].

IE grows browser market share, mobile threat on increase

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:33:00 +0000

The Internet Explorer (IE) browser from Microsoft bucked a recent trend in January with an increase in its share of the (PC based) browser market, rising from 51.9% in December to 53% according to web measurement firm Net Applications.

IE gained market share from both Mozilla Firefox (down from 21.8% to 20.9%) and Google Chrome (from 19.1% to 18.9%) and Safari from Apple also slightly loss ground in slipping 0.1% to 4.9%:In terms of overall market share across all devices though, Microsoft's lack of an IE install base on mobile devices means that they are struggling to hold ground as usage of smartphones and tablets changes the browser market landscape - 8.8% of all browsing was via such devices in January, up from 7.7% on December.

Safari leads the way in this space thanks to the proliferation of iPads and iPhones in the mobile device space.

SOPA dead

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:33:00 +0000

After unprecedented levels of campaigning against the Stop Online Privacy Act (SOPA) and its sister PIPA legislation in the US - including the blackout of Wikipedia - the proposed legislation has been killed off thanks to politicians deserting it in what is after all a US presidential election year.

The campaign was certainly very high profile - Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales said that the protest on their homepage was viewed 126 million times in a 24-hour period - and there was also many hacking incidents against rights holders and other proponents of the proposed law, but it's the pressure on politicians that has led to plans to draft the bill being postponed.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Smith said:

"The committee remains committed to finding a solution to the problem of online piracy that protects American intellectual property and innovation ... The House Judiciary Committee will postpone consideration of the legislation until there is wider agreement on a solution."

In other words, they'll look at this again after November's presidential elections - and whatever happens there's bound to be plenty of anger and shouting from both sides when the issues of intellectual property and piracy do come back on the table.

Sky considering Irish expansion

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:32:00 +0000

Sky are considering expanding their services in the Republic of Ireland by signing a deal with one of more of the country's local telcos which would enable them to offer the holy grail of so-called 'triple play' services (broadband and fixed line telephony as well as their satellite TV service) as they do for UK customers, successfully signing up plenty of them in the process.

The company has 675,000 pay TV subscribers in Eire and their chief financial offer Andrew Griffith said that "there are talks ongoing" with local operators - thought to be BT and Eircom - about expanding their service proposition.

Griffith added:

"We do look at the market opportunities for broadband and talk in Ireland. The [Irish] market is a bit different [from the UK], the way the local loop is owned and operated.

We looked for many years in the UK before the economics of unbundling were such that we felt we could put an attractive offer to customers.

We would look to partner with others [in Ireland] and so it depends on the economics we are able to obtain . . . as to whether we could launch a product."

Should any deal be inked Sky would not launch any additional services until next year at the earliest.

EE: "UK society needs 4G"

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:31:00 +0000

Everything Everywhere (EE) chief executive Olaf Swantee has updated (paywall - some of the content duplicated here) on the joint 4G trials that they are undertaking with BT in Cornwall to deliver faster mobile broadband speeds (around 6Mb-7Mb so far) in the local village of Trerice.

The trial of 180 customers is focused on how cost effective the running of 4G services is and for the companies to learn ahead of the UK's 4G spectrum auction later this year, and Swantee said of progress:

"The UK society needs 4G.

This is 21st century digital infrastructure. Everything Everywhere alone had a 250 per cent growth in data use in the past two years, which shows how quickly consumers are demanding mobile services, and the uses already being found in Cornwall show the extent of the applications."

Such data growth demand also shows why mobile operators are so keen on rolling out WiFi Hotspots widely across the country and are doing major backhaul deals to offload traffic onto more cost effective fixed line networks - such as with the multi-year deal that EE have done with Virgin Media's business division.

BT hotspots pass 3.5m mark

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:31:00 +0000

BT have announced the latest volumes of WiFi Hotspots available to the company's customers - the majority of which being the FON service pre-installed on customer Home Hubs that share customers' bandwidth with other BT customers, usually without the knowledge of their customers (who have to opt out of the service if they do not want to be part of the programme).

BT customers now have access to in excess of 3.5 million hotspots globally - the remainder of the number being made up by the OpenZone offering which you are more likely to see in restaurants and coffee shops - and, with 380,000 of these in London you'd have to try hard in the capital city to not find one.

BT have provided apps to help customers find the hotspots, and they have been downloaded 900,000 times.

TiVo - a target for Google or Microsoft?

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:30:00 +0000

With the tech giants all working on getting in to TV - in the case of Microsoft, their initial moves have been less than successful though to be fair - it would make sense for them to look at acquiring a company like TiVo which is well known for making connected TV into a good user experience and has a significant fan base.

TiVo, which is used as the connected TV platform by Virgin Media and has a big direct to consumer install base in the US, is said to be an acquisition target for both Microsoft and Google according to the financial newspaper Barron's - who say that their shares are trading at a discount given some of the successful licensing fee litigation that they have won in recent times also.

Their shares were trading at USD$11.23 last week but Barron's believe that a price in the mid USD$20 each could be expected should either of the tech giants actively pursue the business, which is expected to undertake further litigation against cable companies in the future.

Tech firms agree to Indian censorship

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:28:00 +0000

21 Internet firms - including giants Facebook and Google - have agreed to implement a censorship regime in India that blocks access to content deemed to be offensive to religious groups after they were threatened with a crackdown "like China" by a New Delhi court if they did not comply.

A private petitioner had taken the firms to the court over claims that they contained content that could be deemed as offensive to Muslims, Hindus and Christians - and with local laws making sites responsible for user generated content uploaded the companies would need to take it down within 36 hours of receiving a complaint.

Just last month the firms had said it was not possible to implement such a block, but even once in place Internet access in India will be relatively unrestricted for the fewer than 1 in 10 of the population who do have Internet access at present.

With 1.2 billion people in the country though that still makes India the third biggest Internet market after China and the US and India's Internet user base is expected to triple to around 300 million over the next three years.

Openreach price cuts of up to 19% imposed

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 08:26:00 +0000

Telecoms regulator Ofcom has announced the latest price controls that they are applying to the Openreach access division of BT, something that they are empowered to regulate given that Openreach has significant market control in having all non cable fixed line broadband lines in the UK connected to them.

The regulated pricing - which also affects what Openreach charges for telco lines - will drop by up to 19% from April, with further cuts also proposed for next year.

ThinkBroadband have summarised the changes that Ofcom are proposing to the European Union in a handy table:
BT have said that they are considering appealing the proposed changes though as they do not agree with some of the assumptions used to make the calculations. Emphasising that a "fair" level of pricing is needed for them to continue to invest in infrastructure, a spokesman said:

"Whilst the prices are within the range outlined by Ofcom in November, we disagree with some of the underlying assumptions that they have used to determine these charge controls.

Our primary concern throughout this process is to ensure that we are able to achieve a fair rate of return in order to continue our investment in the future of the UK's communications infrastructure."

The other big question is whether ISPs that purchase services from Openreach will pass the cost savings on to their end customers or absorb it within their margin, something that both Sky and TalkTalk claim it is too early to say on which way it will go.

The latter welcomed the price reduction though, saying:

"This reflects that BT's charges have been excessive in the past."

BT's fibre to come with £1,000 installation cost

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:56:00 +0000

A report in The Times on Saturday (it's behind a paywall, so I've not linked to it - but some of the content can be found here) suggests that the 'Fibre to the Premise on Demand' solution that the Openreach access division of BT have come up with to deliver up to 300Mb speeds across their existing FTTC infrastructure is going to come with an installation charge of up to £1,000.

The cost would cover the laying of fibre from the local street cabinet to the premise taking the service, and the scale of the charge confirms that the service is likely to be positioned as one for businesses rather than for residential use when it launches next year - with Openreach head honcho Olivia Garfield confirming they are not expecting it to be subject to mass market demand:

"For most families 80Mbps is more than they will ever need."

Openreach are doubling the theoretical 'up to' headline speeds of their FTTC infrastructure from 40Mb to 80Mb later this year - although the speed consumers actually receive is still affected by their line length.

MP apologises after intern takes over Twitter account

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 08:49:00 +0000

Tom Watson, the Labour MP who has led the crusade over the phone hacking scandal, has apologised after a 21-year-old intern took over his Twitter account and posted messages in his name without his permission - but has said that she will not be sacked after a #savetheintern hashtag started trending on Twitter.

Amongst messages posted to the Internet savvy MPs account was one that said he had been "twit-raped" and the intern then tried to recover by posting an apology, one which the MP later backed up by saying:

"I sincerely apologised for the recent tweet. A lesson learned for a young intern. She's also very sorry. I will deal with the matter offline."

Confirming that she is not losing her job, he added:

"Any action I have taken is private but she isn't being sacked. She is young. We all make mistakes."

Virgin to complete 100Mb rollout months early

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 22:02:00 +0000

Virgin Media, who are set to release their financial results to the City later this week, are to complete their network wide rollout of their 100Mb speeds months earlier than expected - which, on top of news that they are doubling the speeds of customers and taking their fastest speed to 120Mb, is a welcome development for the cable giant's customers.

The rollout, which was originally due to complete in the middle of this year, will now complete in the Spring and result in all 13 million homes passed by their network being able to get access to the faster speeds - and presumably the company's results on Wednesday will give some indication as to how many they have already signed up.

Virgin's broadband executive director Jon James said:

"Soon half the country will be able to get superfast 100Mbps broadband from us. Reaching today's milestone puts us ahead of schedule as we help propel the UK up the global broadband rankings."

Virgin are in an arms race with BT for faster broadband, a fight that might leave others behind - particularly the unbundlers who can't deliver faster speeds on their existing copper based LLU infrastructure.

One analyst, Robin Bienenstock of Sanford Bernstein, said of where it leaves the rest:

"This leaves the unbundlers (but in particular BSkyB as TalkTalk is the clear discounter in the market) in the unenviable position of having to choose between selling product that is margin dilutive or resisting its sale and seeing their premium quality status diluted."

BT Q4 Results

noreply@blogger.com (Hermes) — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 18:10:00 +0000

BT announced their fourth quarter financial results yesterday, in which they revealed that their Retail division had added (net additions) 146k broadband customers in the quarter, which was down 22% on the same quarter a year previous and 20k short of the number that Sky reported earlier in the week.

The growth takes their overall customer base (which remember includes at least 783k business customers) to 6.144m broadband punters and maintains their position as the biggest retail provider in the country, with much of the growth driven by the company's attractively priced introductory offers.

BT's big news - other than their massive "Fibre to the Premise on Demand" fibre announcement - is the success of their 'Infinity' faster broadband service, which is based on the (largely) FTTC network that their Openreach access division is rolling out, and in the quarter the base grew by 95k to 398k Infinity customers - and they now have over 400k of them.

The Infinity service now accounts for 65% of BT's total broadband additions - up from 53% in the previous quarter and BT stated that around half of Infinity joiners are new to BT broadband with approximately 20% being new to BT altogether.

The percentage of BT Retail customers taking a 'triple play' (broadband, BT Vision and a calls package) from the company was 6.7% at the end of the year, up from 5.2% at the end of 2010.

BT also signalled that the YouView connected TV service was now due for a launch in the Summer, the middle of the year date showing yet another delay in the service getting underway since TalkTalk announced a date of "early 2012" in November.

Overall revenues from the retail division shrunk 5% to £1.849bn in the quarter as a result of a 10% decline in calls revenue, around a third of which was as a result of weather being warmer in the quarter compared to the same time of year in 2010.

Speaking alongside the results BT chief executive Ian Livingston said:

"We have delivered another quarter of growth in profits and cash flow despite the economic headwinds.

In the UK, our fibre roll-out has accelerated bringing super-fast broadband within reach of over 7m homes and businesses and we remain the number one broadband retailer with over 6m customers. Our fixed-line base has now grown for the last five quarters and our active consumer line loss is at its lowest for five years."

Openreach connected 262k broadband lines in Q4 (down 26% on Q4 2010) as the total number of broadband connections they serve (including businesses) reached 16.5 million.