Bharti Enterprises patriarch Sunil Mittal applauded perennial laggard British Telecom’s “glorious past” this week upon his group’s agreement to buy almost a quarter of BT Group Plc, the former telecommunications monopoly, from Altice UK, part of Patrick Drahi’s troubled telecommunications empire. There are enough reasons to accept his rationale for the multibillion-dollar bet about the company’s future.
For one, it’s the first big corporate wager on Keir Starmer’s promise to “take the brakes off Britain.” Mittal has said in the past that “the telecom business is about three things: network, network, network,” and BT’s plans do mesh with that belief. BT’s slow buildout of Britain’s broadband backbone, through Openreach Ltd, may eventually deliver a stable revenue stream.
Mittal mentioned “the tremendous amount of physical infrastructure” that BT already has in the UK. But Bharti’s investment will really pay off if that infrastructure can get added to swiftly and predictably. Whether it is mobile 5G – which the BT Group now offers through EE Ltd….
