BT’s capital expenditure excluding spectrum payments increased 9 percent to £1.011 billion, primarily due to FTTP provisioning activities, mobile network spend and non-network infrastructure due to the Better Workplace program.
Other increases include FTTP provisioning activities, mobile network spend and non-network infrastructure due to the Better Workplace program, BT said.
BT Group said its total capital expenditure (Capex) rose 63 percent to £1.507 billion, primarily due to investment in spectrum of £496 million.
BT CEO Philip Jansen said: “We’re powering ahead with our network build programmes: Openreach has now built full fibre broadband to more than 5m premises with growing customer demand; EE has set out plans for 5G on demand anywhere in the UK by 2028.”
BT’s FTTP base has grown by 107k quarter on quarter, its largest ever quarterly increase. BT’s 5G base now stands at over 4 million. BT’s mobile network was this month ranked by RootMetrics as the UK’s number one network — for the eighth year running.
BT earlier announced long-term mobile network plans including: a 5G network that covers over 90 percent of the UK’s landmass by 2028; 4,500 square miles of new rural 4G coverage by 2025; and retiring legacy 3G services by 2023.