The revival of the once staid British telecom monopoly BT picked up pace yesterday when it launched a drive to upgrade its fibre network ahead of a key soccer rights auction and a deal to buy mobile operator EE.

Getting its finances in order ahead of the two pivotal events, BT also agreed to a new deal with its pension trustees to tackle a deficit that has hit £7 billion ($10.5 billion), up from £3.9 billion three years ago.

The 169-year-old firm will now pay £2 billion into the scheme over three years, down from the £2.6 billion it paid in the three previous years. The trustees accepted the company now had a stronger financial future and would be able to shoulder repayments over a longer period.

"These (announcements) reflect the strengths of the business and the confidence we have in the future, and the fact that the technologies and services we provide are very much in demand," chief executive Gavin Patterson said.

With the pension payments agreed and results showing strong cash flow generation, BT said it would upgrade its fibre broadband network to achieve ultra-fast speeds of up to 500MB across the country within a decade.

It did not say how much this would cost but said it would achieve this broadly within its capital spending plans.

Aiming to join the ranks of Japan and South Korea in broadband speeds, BT will trial a new technology called Gfast, which increases the speeds that can travel over the copper wires that connect premises to BT cabinets on their streets.

Two pilot trials will start this year and it hopes to deliver initial speeds of a few hundred megabits per second to millions of homes and businesses by 2020.

BT's fibre network, which currently boasts speeds of up to 76MB, currently passes 22 million premises, with 3.7 million now connected after a record quarter for fibre additions.

BT has rolled out its fibre service across much of Britain and while it has seen strong take-up by both BT Retail customers and those of other service providers, some customers have wanted more and complained they are not getting the maximum speeds advertised.-Reuters