BT to invest £6bn for ‘ultrafast’ broadband

BT Group, which scaled up its annual profit by 15 percent, will be investing a hefty £6bn over the next three years on upgrading its broadband and mobile services in the U.K. The investment plan is tailored to meet the company’s expectations of providing ‘ultrafast’ broadband service to 12 million homes and businesses.

The telecoms giant’s net sales zoomed by 6% to almost £19bn, with a sizeable portion of the income generated from mobile operator EE.

In order to meet customers’ demands for fast and affordable broadband, the company will rely on its G.fast technology, writes the BBC. The technology, which currently delivers a speed of 300 Mbps (megabits-per-second), will enhance the speed to 500 Mbps in future. With its plan to induct 1,000 new engineers, the company aims to handle 90 percent of the customer service calls through U.K.-based staff by March 2017.

The investment plan by Britain’s biggest broadband company is being viewed as a response to rivals and regulators, who have been criticizing it for the poor quality of service, notes Reuters. In one of the major improvements, BT will provide fiber connections to two million properties, thus acting on one of the top recommendations from the regulator Ofcom.