BT Group’s CEO Ben Verwaayen unveiled the company’s two-pronged strategy: re-establishing its own brand of mobile services, and building Britain’s first public access wireless LAN. The company’s strategy is expected to generate additional revenues of $260-million by 2005, Verwaayen said.

Launching BT Mobile Services
BT will purchase airtime from mmO2, of which it owns 20 percent, to offer businesses and consumers integrated telecom services under its own brand.

The telecom stressed it has no intentions of building its own mobile phone network, which is being interpreted as an attempt not to step on the toes of its mm02 spin off.

Many analysts say that BT will be the enviable position of "having its cake and eating it" — earning mobile profits, while not facing any of the risks associated with owning the network.

Building Wireless LAN
BT has high hopes of having 400 hot spots within a year, and 4,000 within three years. Discussions with Britain’s largest airport operator BAA, coffee shop chain Costa Coffee, roadside restaurant and service operator Welcome Break and others are under way, the company said.

Mobile users sitting in an airport lounge or coffee shop can expect to access the Internet and their own secure corporate networks at speeds of up to 500 kbps.

Motorola and Cisco Systems will be called upon to build the network, starting with the 802.11 standard, before adding Bluetooth technology.

But BT’s ambitious and costly public wireless broadband network, with an estimated price tag of $14.4-million, hinges on the British government lifting the ban on the commercial use of the 2.5 GHz bandwidth, where Wi-Fi networks broadcast their signals.

According to David Hughes, BT’s director of mobility, the company has received indications that the ban should be lifted by June as recommended by a government commission a few months ago.

For more information: http://www.groupbt.com