Technological advances

Our continued success depends on our ability to exploit new technology rapidly.
     We operate in an industry with a recent history of rapid technological changes and we expect this to continue – new technologies and products will emerge and existing technologies and products will develop further.
     We need to continually exploit next generation technologies in order to develop our existing and future services and products. However, we cannot predict the actual impact of these future technological changes on our business or our ability to provide competitive services. For example, there is evidence of substitution by customers using mobile phones for day-to-day voice calls in place of making such calls over the fixed network and of calls being routed over the internet in place of the traditional switched network. If these trends accelerate, our fixed-network assets may be used uneconomically and our investment in these assets may not be recovered through profits on fixed-network calls and line rentals.
     The complexity of the 21CN programme, and the risk that our major suppliers fail to meet their obligations may result in delays to the delivery of the expected benefits. Impairment write-downs may be incurred and margins may decline if fixed costs cannot be reduced in line with falling revenue.