BT Group telecommunications services

BT Group plc, formerly known as British Telecom, is the United Kingdom's leading telecommunications provider. Its origins date back to 1846 with the founding of the Electric Telegraph Company, the world’s first public telegraph firm. Over the following century, the network was nationalized under the General Post Office (GPO), eventually becoming a separate state corporation named British Telecom in 1981. The company underwent a landmark privatization in 1984, which transformed it into a public limited company and opened the UK telecoms market to competition.

Today, BT Group is a multinational entity headquartered in London, operating primarily through its key brands: BT, EE, Plusnet, and Openreach. While it serves customers in approximately 180 countries, its core infrastructure and primary operations remain centered in the United Kingdom. Ownership is distributed among various global institutional and private investors, with Bharti Enterprises (India) and Deutsche Telekom (Germany) currently holding the largest individual stakes as of 2026.