BT today said its capital expenditure will be nearly £4.9 billion during fiscal 2021-22 as it will focus on fiber and 5G business.
BT said its capital expenditure was £4.216 billion in 2020-21 as compared with £3.96 billion in 2019-20.
BT’s network investment was £2.318 billion, up 12 percent, driven by higher fixed network, mobile network and equipment spend, reflecting investment in FTTP deployment and the mobile network. Other capital expenditure components were largely flat with £984 million spent on customer driven investments, £765 million on systems and IT, and £149 million spent on non-network infrastructure.
BT’s customer bases on strategic products continued to grow in Q4 with FTTP base at 753k, up 67k quarter on quarter despite lockdown restrictions in Q4 hampering connection activity.
BT’s 5G ready customer base is over 3.2 million. BT’s 5G coverage continues to grow and is now in 160 locations. EE secured spectrum in the latest Ofcom auction which will allow it to grow its position as the UK’s number one 5G network.
EE was named the Fastest Mobile Network by Uswitch in February 2021 adding to the recognition received from Rootmetrics latest national results where EE took top spot for the 15th consecutive time; according to Rootmetrics EE has 5G in more places than any other network.
In the latest published Ofcom report, the complaints rate about EE landlines and broadband services were the lowest of all providers. For BT landlines and broadband services, the rates were lower than the industry average for both products. In addition, EE mobile had the equal lowest complaints rate of any major mobile network operator.
Broadband Q4 churn has improved year on year by 0.3ppts to 1.0 percent due to significant investment in customer experience.
Postpaid Q4 churn has improved year on year by 0.1ppts to 1.0 percent. BT Halo 3+ was launched in February which redefines home broadband reliability by giving customers BT’s best fibre broadband and Wi-Fi technology, which automatically connects to the EE mobile network if the broadband connection goes down. The Halo base is now at 2.8m growing by over 1m in the last year.
