Battered BT’s distress call

£1.1BN KICKING FROM COVID CRISIS

The pandemic has seen a surge in broadband use from people working or schooling from home. But most households pay for unlimited-use packages.

The lockdown, including the closure of its shops, has also made it harder for BT to get households to switch to more expensive full-fibre internet.

And while home broadband usage has jumped, business demand has dropped.

To add further pressure, travel restrictions mean people aren’t going abroad and paying mobile roaming charges. Plus, the closure of pubs and clubs has seen many cancel their BT Sport TV deals.

It meant BT’s revenues fell 6% to just over £16billion

Teletext Holidays is being investigated over refunds for trips cancelled due to coronavirus.

The Competition and Markets Authority said it received hundreds of complaints from people who said they had not received refunds. Those booking a package holiday are protected under Package Travel Regulations, so should get their money back within 14 days, depending on the reason for cancellation. between April and December, with profits down 5% to £5.6bn.

The only area of growth was BT’s Openreach broadband network arm, where revenues rose 2% to £3.9bn.

Openreach’s rollout of the equipment needed for homes and businesses to get full-fibre broadband reached a record 42,000 premises a week in the final three months of 2020. But while 4.1million premises could get faster broadband, only 686,000 have signed up.

BT has called on the Government to scrap the business rates charged on fullfibre kit in a move it says could save £1bn over 20 years.

Chief executive Philip Jansen said results were in line with expectations.

Russ Mould, from City firm AJ Bell, said: “It feels like BT should have fared

better than it did.”