A national government backed campaign, led by the Learning and Skills Council is urging more employers and businesses to take on apprentices especially during this downturn when the benefits of having a highly skilled workforce are more important than ever.

The message is that apprenticeships are good for business and are a sound investment. The business case for apprenticeships is compelling with many benefits including increased productivity, greater staff retention, profitability and more highly motivated workforces.

BT’s apprenticeship scheme was set up in 1995 and is considered to be one of the leading examples in the country.

We have an ongoing commitment to continue to work with companies across the region in a practical way, to use our business knowledge and experience in these testing times and to help and encourage other businesses to flourish in support of the region’s inward investment plans and overall economic strategy.

John Dovey BT Regional Director, West Midlands

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In today’s economic environment it is more important than ever that companies are aware of the needs of their customers. The effects of the global recession and the difficulties faced are being felt by both businesses and individuals across the West Midlands region. In support of this and despite the economic downturn, BT has pledged to forge ahead with investment plans to spend £1.5bn to ensure that 40% of UK homes and businesses can access fibre-based services. The UK already leads in terms of DSL broadband access. Further details of this recent announcement, our wider strategy and specific progress around our world leading 21st century network in the West Midlands are included in this issue.

These challenging times also give the opportunity for businesses to reassess their current working practices in order that they can become more effective, efficient and successful, whilst cutting costs. Recent research from BT shows that the credit crunch is having an impact on a growing number of small to medium-sized enterprises and through our BT local businesses in the region we are keen to continue with them to help them improve efficiency, manage costs and build new business models. In this issue we focus on some of the free initiatives and trials BT have launched to do this.

There is also an increased focus on learning and skills, and in particular an emphasis on apprenticeships.

For further information on what’s happening in your region visit the BT Regions website at: www.bt.com/btregions 1

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In July 2002 BT launched its Digital Inclusion Campaign, a clear recognition that the digital divide existed and that it was a key issue for Government, BT and the whole communications industry to address. For BT, the causes of digital exclusion, and therefore the solution, focuses around the interconnected issues of access, motivation, skills and confidence. Over the past six years, at both a national and regional level, BT has worked with Government, NGOs, businesses and the individuals themselves, to help to tackle these issues.

To support this work and stimulate debate BT has published a new report which brings together experiences and case studies from across the UK, highlighting the challenges and impacts of the digitally excluded.

The report, ‘An insight into closing the digital divide’, shares knowledge from projects and programmes around the English regions, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland and raises questions about what needs to be done to close the gap between those who are online and those who are not.

In the West Midlands region Marie Ward took part in the Crossing the Divide project and has found that being online has helped her to find support from

friends and family who live away. Being able to access information which helped make her life easier has been invaluable for Marie.

John Anderson, Managing Director BT Regions, who championed the report emphasised that those who are already online, now have access to a wider world of information, a greater amount of choice and a wide choice of social stimulus. He said “This report demonstrates that even the very small things can have such a huge impact on someone’s life – things which some of the most internet savvy people take for granted.”

Helen Milner, Managing Director, UK Online Centres welcomed the report and said, “BT is one of the organisations already leading the way on this agenda… I hope this report will add to the growing evidence base, and help inform the future of digital inclusion”.

To read a copy of the report in more detail please visit www.bt.com/researchandreports

An insight into closing the digital divide

A new era of broadband services is emerging in the West Midlands. The communications revolution has already seen strong progress in this region and much remains to be done at this critical time if the West Midlands is to take full advantage of the tremendous opportunities. In particular, it has never been more vital for the region’s public and private sectors to work together to harness the potential. Many important milestones have been passed as the foundations are laid for a new flexible approach to broadband offering a mix of services to suit all tastes and pockets. At the heart of these developments, BT has now completed the transformation of the UK’s core and transmission network for its world-leading 21st Century Network (21CN).

By the end of last month BT had enabled exchanges serving 40% of UK homes and businesses for copper-based ‘next generation’ broadband services, including more than 800,000 lines serving West Midlands homes and businesses today.

And Birmingham is at the forefront of developments with 77% of the city’s phone and broadband lines now enabled for next generation services. Broadband speeds of up to 20Mbit/s are possible, which is more than twice the maximum speeds currently available to most customers. The next generation of broadband will support High Definition TV and other popular high-bandwidth services. With 90,000 UK homes and businesses each month expected to be moving to 21CN broadband this summer, the momentum is growing fast.

Some customers want even higher speeds and this is being catered for with BT’s access fibre broadband services. Already fibre-to-the-premise trials are underway – offering speeds of up to 100Mbit/s. Furthermore, BT plans to roll out fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband services to as many as 10 million homes by 2012.

A new era of broadband services in the West Midlands

For further information on what's happening in your region visit the BT Regions website at: www.bt.com/btregions 2

Home businesses – the bright spot of the region’s economyMillions more people will earn an income from home is the message coming from the latest research report from enterprise Nation – the highly renowned home business company which hosts the UK’s largest website for people starting and growing a business from home.

Following on from last years BT sponsored Home Business report which named Coventry, Stoke on Trent, Birmingham, Redditch, Telford, Rugby and Solihull in the top 50 hotspots in the country for home businesses, the predictions for 2009 are reassuringly positive.

They include:

• A significant contribution to the UK economy from home-based businesses

• Calculations on the environmental savings from homeworking

• Predictions of the high growth in self-employed and home-based enterprises as an effect of the downturn in employment opportunities.

A round table event in February with senior representatives from organisations from across the UK including, Local Authorities, enterprise Agencies, Microsoft, BT, Business Link and Academia took part in a discussion focused on looking at ways in which the home enterprise sector can improve regional engagement and encourage recognition and priority within the regional economic strategies.

John Dovey, BT Regional Director, West Midlands said “BT has invested heavily to champion the home business sector – we have made a commitment, offering the kind of expertise, advice and services that allow home businesses to focus on what they do best, whilst we take care of the technology.”

The round table was followed by the formal launch of the top 10 enterprise Nation predictions led by Mark Prisk MP shadow minister for business, enterprise and regulatory reform.

For further information and to view the latest predictions go to www.enterprisenation.com

With download speeds of up to 40 Mbit/s – potentially 60 Mbit/s – fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband will be appealing to homeworkers, gamers and will comfortably satisfy the predicted demand for simultaneous entertainment services. Pilots begin this summer in London and Cardiff, and from early 2010 roll-out to 500,000 UK homes in parts of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Greater Manchester, East of England and Yorkshire will also commence. Additional UK locations serving a further one million homes will be confirmed in the autumn.

The UK’s broadband mix is also being enriched through the introduction by BT of 604 21CN Ethernet nodes across the country. This includes 50 nodes in the West Midlands at locations such as Birmingham, Coventry & Shrewsbury. Ethernet primarily supports communications within individual corporate businesses and organisations.

BT’s 21CN is about providing broadband services for the future, many of which have not yet emerged, giving consumers more control, choice and flexibility and access to innovative, exciting software-driven applications.

The growth of BT’s broadband ‘mixed economy’ marks the beginning of a new chapter in the UK’s broadband story. It’s underpinning more and more customer choice and opening the door to exciting and innovative applications.

The West Midlands is already a tremendous broadband success story. In this tough economic climate, advanced communications are even more critical for stimulating the regional economy and helping the region compete on a national and international stage.

BT is playing its part and this is a great opportunity for our region to be on the front page of the next chapter in the UK’s broadband story.

BT has launched the 2009 BT Community Connections awards, offering laptops and broadband to community groups, to enable them to get online. The scheme supports a diverse range of groups from silver-surfers to conservation organisations. This year more than a 1,000 awards are available. Award winners will receive a Toshiba internet-ready laptop with 12 months’ broadband internet connection.

Winners will also receive additional digital resources which will enable them to make the most of the marketing, recruitment, fundraising, communication and networking opportunities available online.

Unique to this year’s awards is the introduction of a new cluster award, which allows up to five community groups to apply together. For further information and application form visit: www.btcommunityconnections.com

Call for BT Community Connections applications

5. London and the South East will retain 1st and 2nd position

as Home Enterprise Hotspots but will be challenged by

regions running home enterprise support projects. In particular,

watch out for activity in the West Midlands.

6. The spare room will remain the most popular home

enterprise space, closely followed by the Garden WorkShed.

The free markets will respond with the demise of the

conservatory as the ‘planning free’ home extension and the most

popular home ‘add on’ will become a ‘clip on’ office/workroom.

7. By staying off the roads at peak congestion times, homeworkers

will reduce CO2 emissions by at least 18 million kg.**

8. Homeworkers will continue to use social networking to

promote their services online; we will see an increase in the

use of micro-blogging platforms, such as Twitter, in home

enterprise.

9. Handheld devices, such as smart phones, will become

a necessity for home business owners, as flexible working is

encouraged.

10. Enterprise Nation will provide information, support and

market exposure to millions of home enterprises and will

remain the UK’s leading home enterprise company.

Free business value pack BT recently launched a free Business Value Pack specifically aimed at the UK’s 4.6 million small to medium-sized businesses to help them improve efficiency, manage costs and build new business models.

The pack provides a flexible range of free-to-use or free-to-trial IT and communications services, worth up to £700. It contains special offers and best practice advice on controlling costs, winning and keeping customers, and better company management to cope with the economic downturn.

Businesses are also given access to a host of tools to help them maximise their online profiles, improve staff productivity and cut the cost of travel, energy consumption and operations. A free audio web-conferencing trial is included, as well as free membership of BT Tradespace and a free website review.

For many businesses, smart deployment of IT and communications could underpin their ability to compete and weather the storm. To find out more visit www.thrivewithbt.com

For further information on what's happening in your region visit the BT Regions website at: www.bt.com/btregions 3

In March 2008 BT was announced as the official communications services partner for the London 2012 Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. BT will be providing communications infrastructure and services required to deliver the 2012 Games. Delivering the communications services to join up the venues requires a major operation. In the 2012 Games there will be more than 14,000 athletes from more than 200 nations, taking part in nearly 700 events – not just in London, but at venues across the country, (including a number of training facilities/camps in the West Midlands ) watched live by billions of people across the world.

Alongside other London 2012 technology partners, BT is responsible for delivering every image from the Olympic Games, every sports report, every visit to the London 2012 website and millions of calls, emails and texts.

BT is delivering communications services for mobile and fixed telephony, wide area networks, local area networks (LANs), security, cable TV feeds and transmission.

In each of the venues, we will be installing wireless access, TV feeds, internet protocol phones, games applications, and infrastructure for mobile phones. This will include the main press and broadcast centres and the athletes’ village.

Bringing it all together for the London 2012 GamesBT will also be providing the Olympic Games LAN – joining together management applications, accreditation, registration, event scheduling, results and commentary systems in conjunction with other London 2012 technology partners. This includes the provision of the administration LAN supporting the back office with internet for the London Organising Committee of the Olympic and Paralympic Games (LOCOG), telephony network and cable TV. As well as technology for live sites in city centres across the regions that will become focal points for communities.

BT also hosts the London 2012 website which had its highest number of visits to date on 24 August, 2008 for the handover from Beijing to London.

Together with other regional partner organisations, BT has representation on a number of forums that have been set up to maximise opportunities.

Facts and figuresBT is providing:

• 80,000 connections across 94 different locations

• 4,500km of cabling

• 1,000 wireless access points

• 16,500 telephones

• 14,000 mobile phone SIM cards

• 14,000 cable TV outlets

• Enabling 6Gb of information to be carried each second, roughly the equivalent of the words in 6,000 novels or the music in 17 mp3 albums.

BT Local Business in the West Midlands There are six BT Local Businesses based in the West Midlands helping local firms manage their technology and communications. The companies based in Birmingham, Burton on Trent, Coventry, Stoke, Stratford and Wolverhampton are independent small businesses themselves, licensed to sell BT products and services and form part of the BT Local Business [BTLB] network.

The network was established by BT Business, part of BT’s Retail Division in 2002 as a pilot scheme of six businesses. It has proved so successful that it has grown to 50 businesses covering england, Wales and Scotland.

The independent businesses are small firms themselves and were established as one-stop shops to meet all the technology and communication needs of small, local firms.

BT research has showed the majority of SMes preferred to do business with other SMes, who understood their needs. So the network was set up to do exactly that. Its unique structure gives customers their own local service with one point of contact. It gives them the flexibility and the personal touch that only small local businesses can deliver, but with the full support and resources of BT.

In total the West Midlands BT Local Businesses provide communications advice and solutions to more than 77,000 local businesses.

Small businesses can find out more at: www.bt.com/btlocalbusiness or can contact their local BT Local Business by calling 0800 389 3364.

Thousands of customers across the region could potentially benefit from improved broadband performance, thanks to a simple, patented, self-install filter developed by BT called the I-Plate.It filters out electrical interference which can often slow down broadband speed and affect the stability of the connection. Extension telephone wiring, in homes and businesses, acts like a giant antennae picking up interference from TVs, lights and other everyday appliances. This can result in a significant loss of broadband performance.

Customers need to have a BT NTE 5 master socket (see picture) and extension wiring in their home to fit an I-Plate – the NTE 5 is easily identified by a horizontal split in the face plate and the BT logo. They simply unscrew the face plate of the master socket, clip the I-Plate in place and replace the face plate over it. BT trials estimate that, typically, filtered lines achieved speed increases of around 1.5Mb/s – though some lines

Speedier broadband thanks to BT’s new ‘I-Plate’achieved as much as a 4Mb/s increase. Although speed increases can not be guaranteed in every case – as the level of electrical interference varies greatly from line to line – other potential benefits include greater line stability.

Communications providers have shown considerable interest in BT I-Plate and at less than £12 each they are also available for purchase online at the BT Shop: www.shop.bt.com

For further information on what's happening in your region visit the BT Regions website at: www.bt.com/btregions

© British Telecommunicactions plc. Registered office: 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJ. Registered in England no.4190816. Produced by BT Group Communications. Designed by Tag. 4

BT Apprentices gain skills in the region In the same month that the Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Adastral Park to launch a new local training initiative for young people – BT’s centre for research, innovation and technology in Suffolk – the West Midlands also opened its doors to BT apprentices from across the UK. With the help of Yarnfield Park training centre in Stone, Staffordshire – 19 BT apprentices are studying for the foundation degree in customer service and contact centre management with the help of e-Skills Accenture Learning, Staffordshire University and Newcastle-Under-Lyme College.

All the apprentices will spend two days each week working towards a level four contact centre professional National Vocational Qualification (NVQ), and levels two and three qualifications in key skills.

In February they began work on a foundation degree in customer service and contact centre management, with three weeks each semester studying at BT’s Yarnfield Park – supported by the university and college.

John Dovey regional director said “Apprenticeships bring so many benefits to everyone involved; they are an effective way for businesses to obtain the right skills to get them through the economic downturn, and offer a hand-picked, motivated workforce. They are also a way for keen and hard-working young people to develop their skills and experience in a workplace environment, which will prepare and equip them for a fulfilling career.

The power of football is to be used to improve the computer and communications skills of Black Country children and their families. Hundreds of youngsters in Pensnett and Brockmoor are being given the opportunity to get to grips with the latest technology and develop their sporting skills at the same time.It’s all thanks to the £1 million UK-wide Communicating for Success programme funded by BT and the Football Foundation.

West Bromwich Albion Football Club’s community programme and study support centre has been signed up to lead the Black Country initiative, which kicks off at Pensnett High School. It will be used to deliver Team Talk - an education and sports project designed to encourage a positive attitude to learning and to give young people the confidence to pass on knowledge.

The focus will be on helping 11-to-16-year-olds use a variety of information communication technology (ICT) resources to develop new skills, which they in turn will teach to a nominated family member or carer.

Meanwhile, football coaching sessions will also take place at the school when coaches from the football club’s community

programme will encourage the youngsters to develop new skills.

“BT is committed to supporting the development of IT literacy and helping people of all ages and abilities prosper through confidence with communications, computers and the internet,” said BT’s regional manager Ian Binks.

“The plans here in the Black Country are extremely exciting and will make an important contribution to helping us achieve this goal.”

enterprise comes homeA revolutionary business headquarters for hundreds of home-based entrepreneurs was recently launched in Telford. Thanks to the ongoing vision and the ‘can-do’ culture of Telford & Wrekin Council, enterprise HQ will help 100 businesses a year to start-up and by Christmas 09 there will be a thousand members of established businesses, benefiting from this unique venue and support system.

Councillor Eric Carter, the Cabinet Member for Regeneration at Telford & Wrekin Council has been the enterprise champion for the project and said: “The launch of Enterprise HQ is a great step forward. It will give a major boost to help a key growth sector in the borough – local entrepreneurs. There are so many people out there with great ideas and they just need help with contacts and services. Enterprise HQ will help give them both.

Enterprise HQ will open its doors to a flurry of entrepreneurs and mobile professionals who join a million people a year across the UK, reaping the benefits of home-based business operation and mobile working.

Ian Binks, BT’s regional manager said: “The growth of home businesses, despite the economic downturn, is a major business success story for the West Midlands. Technology, such as broadband, has made it more cost effective and easier than ever before to start a business in your home. A flourishing home business sector is good news for the UK economy, environment and society and we’re confident it will continue to prosper in the months ahead. Enterprise HQ is an innovative approach to ensuring that the home business sector in Shropshire has the help and support it needs to contribute significantly to the County’s economy.”

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New carbon standard for BT BT has become one of the first companies in the UK to achieve the new Carbon Trust Standard certification.

It means the company has been recognised as an organisation that has genuinely reduced its carbon footprint and is committed to making further reductions year on year.

The Carbon Trust was set up by the government to accelerate the move to a low-carbon economy by working with organisations to reduce carbon emissions and develop commercial low-carbon technologies.

Independent third-party assessors found BT had met the criteria for the standard that was introduced last summer to replace the energy Efficiency Accreditation Scheme, which BT previously held.

BT will continue to work towards its vision to be number one in the world for energy and carbon management.

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