BSkyB goes on the offensive over BT pension plans
As we covered earlier today, British Telecom is looking at a pension fund deficit in excess of £9 billion and has been in talks with the regulator Ofcom to try and find a solution to this growing problem. Despite the fact that the company has increased its premiums to the pension fund by hundreds of millions of pounds a year there is still a growing shortfall which needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.
One option on the table appears to be an increase of around 4% in wholesale telephony prices to the likes of BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse, companies which pay to use the BT network. This will allow BT to increase its income and uses additional capital to invest into the company's pension fund and reduce the enormous deficit.
While Ofcom has yet to rule on this matter it is believed it is looking seriously at the option of increasing wholesale telephony prices at least in the short to medium term. This has not gone down well with the likes of BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse who are battling to grab market share from British Telecom in what has become a very difficult and very competitive UK telephone, Internet and broadband market.
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