British Telecommunications Group plc (commonly known as 'British Telecom' or BT) is the privatised former British state telecommunications operator. BT owns and runs the telephone exchanges and local loop connections for the vast majority of British fixed-line telephones.
As the dominant operator in British telecommunications, BT's businesses are ostensibly operated under special government regulation by the British telecoms regulator Oftel.
BT has a controversial patent, US patent number 4873662, which it claims gives it a monopoly on the technology of web hyperlinks. Opponents of BT's claims hold that the patent is not valid, due to prior art by both Douglas Englebart and Ted Nelson's Project Xanadu. On February 11, 2002, a court case relating to BT's claims started in a US federal court against Prodigy Communications Corporation. Whilst the UK license has long since expired, the US patent is not due to expire until 2006.
(Trying to work out how to record the timeline: National Telephone Company -> GPO -> The Post Office and British Telecom -> BT -> BT and mmO2... ?)
(The Post Office is now the privatised company Consignia.)
BT Group has four main businesses:
- BT Ignite: retail broadband networks
- BTopenworld: retail Internet
- BT Retail: retail telecoms
- BT Wholesale: wholesale telecoms network
The former mobile telecommunications business of BT ("BT Cellnet") has now been demerged into a separate business named "mm02". This was a move designed to remove the burden of debt with which the company had encumbered itself, much of which was acquired during the bidding round for the 3rd generation mobile telephony licenses.
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