BT Group
BT Group plc (trading as BT and formerly British Telecom) is a British multinational telecommunications holding company headquartered in London, England. It has operations in around 180 countries and is the largest provider of fixed-line, broadband and mobile services in the UK, and also provides subscription television and IT services.[4]
Formerly
British Telecom
- Electric Telegraph Company
- General Post Office
- Post Office Telecommunications
18 June 1846
(foundation of the Electric Telegraph Company)
1 January 1912
(National Telephone Company system take-over under the General Post Office)
1 October 1969
(as a public corporation under the Post Office)
1 October 1981
(as a public corporation under the British Telecom brand)
1 April 1984
(as a private company)
Worldwide
- Adam Crozier
(Chairman) - Allison Kirkby
(CEO) - Simon Lowth
(Group Finance Director)
£3.175 billion (2023)[1]
£1.905 billion (2023)[1]
£52.75 billion (2023)[1]
- Patrick Drahi (24.5%)[2]
- Deutsche Telekom (12%)[3]
98,800 (2023)[1]
- BT Business
- BT Consumer
- BT Digital
- BT Networks
BT's origins date back to the founding in 1846 of the Electric Telegraph Company, the world's first public telegraph company, which developed a nationwide communications network. BT Group as it came to be started in 1912, when the General Post Office, a government department, took over the system of the National Telephone Company[5] becoming the monopoly telecoms supplier in the United Kingdom. The Post Office Act of 1969 led to the GPO becoming a public corporation, Post Office Telecommunications.[6] The British Telecom brand was introduced in 1980, and became independent of the Post Office in 1981, officially trading under the name. British Telecom was privatised in 1984, becoming British Telecommunications plc, with some 50 percent of its shares sold to investors. The Government sold its remaining stake in further share sales in 1991 and 1993. BT holds a royal warrant and has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange, and is a constituent of the FTSE 100 Index.
BT controls a number of large subsidiaries. Its BT Enterprise division supplies telecoms services to corporate and government customers worldwide,[7] and its BT Consumer division supplies telephony, broadband, and subscription television services in the United Kingdom to around 18 million customers.[8]
Controversies[edit]
World Wide Web hyperlink patent[edit]
In 2001, BT discovered it owned a patent (U.S. patent 4,873,662) which it believed gave it patent rights on the use of hyperlink technology on the World Wide Web. The corresponding UK patent had already expired, but the US patent was valid until 2006. On 11 February 2002, BT began a court case relating to its claims in a US federal court against the internet service provider Prodigy Communications Corporation. In the case British Telecommunications plc v. Prodigy, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled on 22 August 2002 that the BT patent was not applicable to web technology and granted Prodigy's request for summary judgment of non-infringement.[158]
Behavioural targeting[edit]
In early 2008 it was announced that BT had entered into a contract (along with Virgin Media and TalkTalk) with the spyware company Phorm (responsible under their 121Media guise for the Apropos rootkit)[159][160] to intercept and analyse their users' click-stream data and sell the anonymised aggregate information as part of Phorm's OIX advertising service.[161][162] The practice, known as "behavioural targeting" and condemned by critics as "data pimping", came under intense fire from various internet communities and other interested-parties who believe that the interception of data without the consent of users and web site owners is illegal under UK law (RIPA).[163][164][165][166] At a more fundamental level, many have argued that the ISPs and Phorm have no right to sell a commodity (a user's data, and the copyrighted content of web sites) to which they have no claim of ownership. In response to questions about Phorm and the interception of data by the Webwise system Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the World Wide Web, indicated his disapproval of the concept and is quoted as saying of his data and web history:
Historical documents[edit]
Records of the Post Office Corporation (Telecommunications division) 1969–1981 and its predecessors (including Post Office Telegraph and Telephone Service 1864–1969 and some private telegraph and telephone companies) are Public Records, and are held by BT Archives.