BT share price: Company suffers major broadband outage

BT Group Plc (LON:BT.A) has suffered a major outage that left tens of thousands of people across the UK without broadband connection for a couple of hours yesterday. The telco issued a statement, apologising for the failure, which it said was the result of a faulty router, rather than a malicious attack. The outage began at about 14:30 GMT, with customers reporting failures in London, Birmingham, Coventry, Sheffield and Glasgow.

A BT spokesman said in a statement: “Large numbers of customers have been experiencing temporary issues with their broadband services this afternoon. Customers can still receive and make calls as normal.” BT added that the vast majority of affected customers were reconnected approximately two hours after the problems started.
At around 23:00 GMT BT said that it was confident that its services were fully restored, though it advised that some customers might need to reboot their equipment.

The outage comes at an inconvenient time for BT, as the company awaits Ofcom’s decision on Openreach, the BT subsidiary that runs the national broadband infrastructure. The unit has been severely criticised over the quality of its service, with critics – including rival telecoms groups and lawmakers – suggesting that it needs to be spun off as an independent company. Ofcom’s decision on the matter is expected later this month.
In today’s trading, BT shares were down 1.5 percent at 488.60p, as of 10:00 GMT. The stock has risen 3.5 percent since the start of the year and the company’s market capitalisation currently stands at £48.5 billion.
The 22 analysts offering 12-month price targets for BT have a median target of 521.50p, with a high estimate of 600.00p and a low estimate of 240.00p. As of February 02, 2016, the consensus forecast amongst 24 polled investment analysts covering BT had it that investors should hold their position in the company. The same consensus estimate has been maintained since November 27, 2015, when the sentiment of investment analysts deteriorated from “outperform”.
As of 11:06 GMT, Wednesday, 03 February, BT Group plc share price is 487.88p.