It s a very exciting time for us all. Mike Blackburn, Regional Director for the.

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1 Our half- year financial results highlighted the fact that our fibre network now passes more than 17million premises, with more than 2million homes and businesses using our fibre based services. Also noted alongside the commercial rollout was the great progress with our BDUK partnerships - you can read about some of these and case studies of how SMEs are reaping the rewards of fibre technology in this issue. The success of BT Sport was also highlighted, which is not only good news for sports fans but also has the benefit of driving broadband take up which can only have a positive impact across the region. You may also be aware that Ofcom has just released their latest UK Infrastructure Report. This report provides a very comprehensive review of actual UK communication infrastructure as of today. It highlights the strong position of the UK compared to major EU countries, and the US in particular, against the key government targets of SFBB coverage, take up and overall speed. The report also highlights that most of the growth in coverage is a result of BT s continued investment in fibre and recognise that the BDUK programme will help to address this going forward. But it s not just about broadband - we take our social responsibilities seriously at every level of engagement. We are working with organisations across the UK to help people overcome the digital divide and providing the technology and support for initiatives such as BBC Children in Need. It s a very exciting time for us all. Mike Blackburn, Regional Director for the North West mike.blackburn@bt.com. Regional Director s Message New postcode checker for fibre broadband Merseyside looks forward to super-fast future New research shows fibre network boosting local economy Small businesses making it big with fibre broadband Power of fibre broadband feature on YouTube Young people given a sporting chance New postcode checker for fibre broadband Openreach s recently launched new-look super-fast broadband web page now gives customers a better idea of when their exchange will be upgraded. The postcode checker which tells users when exchanges in their area are due to have fibre broadband equipment installed now offers more precise information about the status of their own local exchange. Instead of telling users about all of the exchanges in their area, the postcode checker narrows it down to the exchange that serves them, annotated with the symbol that applies to the current super-fast status of the exchange. This gives a much clearer picture of whether they are likely to be able to receive fibre services. The checker will provide the information required for 99 per cent of enquiries the exceptions being where postcodes straddle a number of exchange boundaries, as they do in Shropshire and Wales. The new web page also features a list of all internet service providers offering fibrebased broadband services on the Openreach network, plus a new don t let your internet connection hold you back video animation. In addition, it has been made more mobilefriendly, so it can be viewed on phones and tablets more easily. The web page now attracts around 200,000 visitors, and delivers around 25,000 clickthroughs to ISP websites every month. Check it out at co.uk Disabled people still facing digital divide Lancashire village first to benefit from county fibre plan BT Sport teams up with Manchester City FC Cycling supremo swaps fast lane for superhighway BT funds for local community groups

2 Merseyside looks forward to super-fast future Thanks to a multi-million pound deal between five Merseyside local authorities and BT, fibre broadband could be extended to up to 98 per cent of the area s businesses and homes within the next three years. Merseyside Connected a partnership led by Liverpool City Council that also includes Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral Councils builds on our ongoing commercial fibre deployment across the Liverpool City Region, and aims to provide a high-speed broadband network to an additional 43,000 premises. This means the vast majority of Merseyside around 634,000 properties could have access to the technology by the end of July The Merseyside Connected initiative will also support the council partnership in its aim to deliver super-fast broadband to small and medium enterprises, helping to boost the local economy. Mayor of Liverpool and Chair of Liverpool City Region Cabinet, Joe Anderson, said: The internet is a huge part of everyday life and it is vital that we do not get left behind if we are to compete effectively with the rest of the UK. This investment in infrastructure will make a big difference to businesses and households across the City Region. The three-year project will begin with a period of planning and surveying, before Openreach starts work on the ground in summer The main technology deployed will be Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC), which provides downstream speeds of up to 80Mbps and upstream speeds of up to 20Mbps. However, Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology, which delivers ultra-fast speeds of up to 330Mbps, may become available on demand throughout the entire fibre footprint in due course should local businesses wish to upgrade. The new network will be open to all communications providers on an equivalent basis, meaning firms and households in Merseyside will benefit from a highly competitive market. It will also boost the competitiveness of local businesses, helping them to find new customers and operate more efficiently, while opening up a host of new learning and development opportunities for home users. Similar contracts have also just been signed covering Newcastle; West Yorkshire and the East Riding of Yorkshire; Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire and Leicestershire; Worcestershire; Berkshire and Oxfordshire; Essex, Milton Keynes and Bedfordshire. New research shows fibre network boosting local economy New independent research by SERIO at Plymouth University and Buckman Associates shows that the fibre network in Cornwall is already providing a major economic boost to local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) - making it one of the best connected areas in Britain and the best connected rural region in Europe. Early findings from the study revealed that after 12 months, 83 per cent of them were saving time and money thanks to the faster speeds and innovative services that fibre broadband enables. In fact, six out of every 10 (58 per cent) SMEs surveyed said their business is growing because of the new technology, whilst more than a quarter (26 per cent) have either created or safeguarded jobs as a direct result of the efficiency and innovation that super-fast broadband encourages. In addition, over a third of businesses participating in the study (37.5 per cent) reported that super-fast broadband had helped their business to generate new sales, with a quarter (24 per cent) of that group pointing to new trade overseas. Nigel Ashcroft, Superfast Cornwall programme director for the Cornwall Development Company, said: The economic benefits of the infrastructure investment will grow over time, but we have encouraging early signs that we are moving in the right direction in Cornwall. Given the challenging economic conditions for SMEs, it is great news that businesses are growing, generating new sales and creating jobs for the Cornwall economy. More than 35,000 local homes and businesses are already taking advantage of the faster speeds, including an estimated 4,130 SMEs. The Superfast Cornwall project is on track to deliver fibre broadband to 95 per cent (originally 80 per cent) of the region, as well as the Isles of Scilly, by the end of It is also aiming to boost speeds for the remaining 5 per cent of premises (about 13,000) by deploying alternative technologies.

3 Small businesses making it big with fibre broadband Businesses all over the UK are now seeing the benefits of upgrading to fibre broadband. And for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), faster speeds have transformed the way they work and their relationships with their clients, as two satisfied customers explain below. Brian Rees is company chairman of the if Agency, an integrated creative agency based in South Manchester that delivers effective online and offline campaigns for retail, leisure, finance and other business clients across the country. When we set up six years ago, we quickly embraced first generation broadband with ADSL that ran at 5Mbps downstream and 800Kbps upstream. This helped but it wasn t a full answer. Large files still couldn t be transferred efficiently and many chunky pieces of artwork were biked up and down motorways, adding risk, time and cost to jobs. We understood that we needed better connections to compete successfully against nationally-networked agencies, and to work more effectively with our blue-chip clients. Our IT consultant outlined the benefits we could gain from fibre broadband with a superfast connection. We found that BT was offering its new BT Infinity services in the region and responded immediately to its customer marketing. After two days of installation work in November 2010, we have never looked back. Using fibre connections, we are more responsive than ever, and can now zap 45Mbps downstream and about 13Mbps up. We worried about the cost and possible inconvenience, but this game-changing improvement in the service we can offer has not cost us a premium, and we didn t suffer any disruption to our business. We understand that our connections are the platform for our continuing success. We always keep a close eye on BT s plans and developments so we re best positioned to take advantage of the latest technologies in our ever-changing and furiously competitive business. Stuart Landreth is one of the founders and directors of Northumberland-based BeeBox Systems, which provides background music systems and digital signage to bars, clubs, hotels, restaurants and family entertainment centres across the North East and, increasingly, throughout the country. The traditional industry model for providing music services still widely in use today is particularly slow and inflexible. The service provider receives new material from the content provider, processes it onto a computer, burns it to a CD, and then sends it by post to the venue for the landlord to upload locally. It takes at least a week to complete the end-toend process when nothing goes wrong. Using fibre broadband, we upload new content to our servers as it arrives from our providers. Every night, each customer s system automatically downloads a scheduled daily update that includes new releases and any requests that they have made. If anything goes wrong or our customer needs a last-minute change, our fibre connection allows us to fix the problem remotely, in real time, often while the customer is still on the phone. Super-fast fibre has transformed the range and quality of services we can offer. We have two BT Infinity lines with a custom-designed router that helps to load balance our needs for fast content turnaround, and are moving away from desktop-based software to a web-based and cloud-based management system so that we can work from anywhere, at any time. We no longer experience capacity constraints that affect our general office systems, so we use all our time far more effectively. We automate where we can to add new services, and to keep our costs low and prices competitive. If your business has received a boost from fibre broadband, and you would like your story to be featured as a case study in a future edition of InTouch, we would love to hear from you. Please contact regions.comms@bt.com Power of fibre broadband featured on YouTube The winning entries in a short story competition held in Northern Ireland have been turned into thoughtprovoking films on the power of fibre broadband and they can now be found on YouTube. Northern Ireland Broadband s Super Short competition challenged teenage citizens to write a 500-word story illustrating how fibre broadband can transform people s lives. Take a look at these inspiring videos they really help bring the story to life. Fourteen-year-old Enniskillen student Dorothy McDowell s film can be viewed here. Twelveyear-old Lisburn student Amy Warke s film can be viewed here. Another inspiring video available on YouTube has been produced, capturing the great work that is going on in Cornwall via the Get IT Together programme to help local people take their first steps to get online. You can view the video on the Better Future YouTube channel here.

4 Young people given a sporting chance An exciting new venture between BT and its BT Sport partners and Comic Relief is using the power of sport to help disadvantaged young people both here in the UK and around the world. The Supporters Club has been set up to raise money to fund the coaches, mentors and teachers that these young people need to help them to fulfil their potential. When customers sign up to BT Sport through our call centres, bt.com or www. thesupportersclub.org, they are being invited to make a recurring 1, 3 or 5 monthly donation to The Supporters Club, collected via their BT bills. However, people who haven t signed up to BT Sport but wish to contribute can do so through our website as well. BT have donated 500,000 from various initiatives to kick things off and will match every 1 given by customers up to the first 1 million. In addition, we are covering the running costs of the fund so that 100 percent of donations will go straight to The Supporters Club, which will be managed by Comic Relief. The scheme aims to support initiatives both in the UK and overseas that utilise the power of sport to help disadvantaged young people improve their lives. These include projects that boost enrolment and achievement in school; reduce levels of exploitation and abuse; secure jobs; improve health and wellbeing; and heighten confidence and self-esteem. We will be regularly updating our website and producing TV programmes featuring projects funded by The Supporters Club, which will be broadcast on BT Sport. Business responsibility matters to BT, and social responsibility is a central part of our business strategy. The Supporters Club as an effective way for us to work hand in hand with our customers and our employees to make a real difference to disadvantaged young people. Already, thousands of customers and BT employees have signed up to donate to The Supporters Club, bringing in around 300,000 a year, which BT will match adding a further 300,000 in the pot. To find out more about the scheme, visit www. sport.bt.com Disabled people still facing digital divide The potential for mainstream technology to transform the lives of the 11 million disabled people in the UK remains largely untapped, according to research funded by BT s Connected Society programme. In a new report, disability charity Scope and the Royal College of Art s Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design argue that disabled people still encounter a huge digital divide and that many still have to choose between expensive specialist equipment and inaccessible mainstream gadgets. Researchers from the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design discovered that technology built for disabled people is expensive, offers low functionality and often requires specialist knowledge to adapt. Mainstream technology, like ipads and Windows Tablets, is cheaper and can do much more, but is rarely customised to meet disabled people s needs. The research also found that the information available to disabled people about enabling technology needs to be improved. They are amongst the groups least likely to use the internet, and are 20 per cent less likely to be online than their peers despite the huge potential of services like online shopping and banking which could transform their lives. With this in mind, the report outlines a series of recommendations for technology companies, commissioners and the providers of key digital services to maximise the enabling potential of digital technology. To coincide with the launch of the report entitled Enabling Technology BT, Scope and the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design unveiled a series of digital technology prototypes at the London Design Festival in September. These included: the Tailored Touch mouse, which can be made from touch-sensitive pads on any surface, and in any shape or size the Pop-up Reader, which allows a blind or partially-sighted person to read letters and other documents via their smartphone. The Enabling Technology report, plus accompanying videos, can be found at technology-for-disabled-people

5 Lancashire village first to benefit from county fibre plan Residents of a picturesque Lancashire village are celebrating becoming the first rural community in the county to benefit from the multi-million pound Superfast Lancashire project. The completion of engineering work means most of the 240 premises in Belthorn will now be able to connect to the super-fast network. Villagers can look forward to download speeds of up to 80Mbps and upload speeds of up to 20Mbps, enabling them to share large files of information, upload photographs, download music, films and television programmes, and surf the internet more quickly than ever before. UK Insulations Ltd was the first business in the village to order a fibre broadband service, and is already seeing the benefits. Finance director Ian Billing said: We re expanding and have customers around the world from China to South America. Having super-fast broadband will help us to compete with larger businesses, in this global marketplace, on an equal footing. Landlord Nicholas Parker, who runs the village s Dog Inn, added: We offer free Wi-Fi to customers but with the current connections the service is a bit hit and miss. With fibre we plan to offer a wireless hub for business customers to hold meetings, a sports hub so fans can watch games on their hand-held devices, and an entertainment hub to keep the youngsters occupied watching a film, playing online games or using social media - all at the same time. Work on the Superfast Lancashire project is well underway across the county, with a total of around 17,000 homes and businesses expected to be connected by the end of this year. Openreach engineers will be laying around 2,700km of optical fibre cable and installing around 700 new fibre broadband cabinets throughout the project area, with an estimated million manhours of work being completed in planning and building the network. Superfast Lancashire is a partnership between BT and Lancashire County Council, with additional funding from the Government s Broadband Delivery UK, as well as the European Regional Development Fund, Blackburn with Darwen Council and Blackpool Council. By the end of 2015, the project will have brought high-speed broadband to 97 per cent of Lancashire s homes and businesses. In addition, as part of the Superfast Lancashire roll-out, a Business Support Centre run by a team of specialists has opened to advise small and medium-sized businesses across the county on how to use the new technology to enhance their business. More information is available at www. superfastlancashire.com Celebrations in Belthorn BT Sport teams up with Manchester City FC BT Sport has struck a threeyear deal to become an Official Partner of Manchester City Football Club. The service, which features Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart in its advertisements, will give its viewers access to exclusive behind-the-scenes content and interviews. It will also link up with the Manchester City TV team regularly on match days from the renamed BT City Square a new fanzone outside the north end of the Etihad stadium created to give fans an even better match-day experience before and after home games. The partnership will bring fans of Manchester City even closer to the action, with weekly interviews from key members of the playing staff. Joe Hart and BT Sport

6 Cycling supremo swaps fast lane for superhighway In October, British cycling legend and Olympic gold medallist Chris Boardman rode into Superfast Lancashire s Get Your Business Superfast event in Preston to deliver super-fast business advice to local firms. Hailing from the North West, and now an entrepreneur himself, Chris aimed to inspire delegates with a keynote speech entitled From dole to Olympic gold, and building a successful business. The free event organised by Superfast Lancashire s Business Support Centre team was designed to help small and medium- sized enterprises make the most of superfast broadband. Around 80 Lancashirebased SMEs attended the session, which included informal presentations, master classes and workshops. Speakers included BT futurologist Nicola Millard, who provided an insight into what may lie around the corner for businesses and their customers. Delegates were also given advice on topics such as digital marketing, social media, cloud computing, better use of the internet and creative website design. In addition, specialist advisors from the Superfast Lancashire Business Support Centre were on hand to talk about their free support services. Superfast Lancashire is a multi-million pound partnership between Lancashire County Council and BT, which by the end of 2015 will have brought highspeed broadband to 97 per cent of the county s homes and businesses. For more information, visit www. superfastlancashire.com BT funds for local community groups The company is rewarding organisations and community groups across the North West with grants of up to 1,000. The donations are being made through our employee recognition scheme, the BT People Awards, which were launched last year. The scheme acknowledges our volunteering heroes, who offer their time and skills to help people in their local community, by awarding grants to organisations with which they are involved. Thirteen groups in the North West have received grants to enable them to continue their excellent work in the community, including: Beetham Church Heritage Trust in Cumbria, Blacon Youth Football Club in Chester, 8th Wigan Boys Brigade in Wigan and Unicorn Athletic Junior Football Club in Altrincham Mike Blackburn, BT Regional Director, said: BT has a long history of working with good causes to help improve lives. We see volunteering as a two-way benefit as there are many development opportunities when new skills are brought back into the workplace. Some of these experiences can only be gained by playing such an active role in the local community. For more information, and a complete list of the latest award recipients, go to To find out more about BT s wider portfolio of activities please see our new brochure at