It's nearly two hundred years old. Byliam/Getty Images BT Group is best known today for broadband, mobile service and the infrastructure running underneath much of the UK's communications network.

Its history starts long before the telephone was a household fixture, tracing back to the Electric Telegraph Company founded by William Fothergill Cooke and John Lewis Ricardo in 1846 to commercialize electric telegraph technology developed by Cooke and Charles Wheatstone. The Electric Telegraph Company merged with the International Telegraph Company in 1855, forming the Electric and International Telegraph Company, before being taken over by the General Post Office in 1870.

Modern BT Group operates several familiar consumer brands, including BT, EE and Plusnet, alongside its business services operation. It also owns Openreach, the infrastructure company responsible for maintaining and expanding the UK's main fixed telecom network. Openreach has been legally separate from BT since Ofcom reforms, with its own board, employees, management and strategy, though BT Group still owns it. Mobile is another major part; BT completed its acquisition of EE in 2016, giving the group control of the UK's largest mobile network, and EE's 5G+ network now reaches 77 percent of the population.

As of June 30, Openreach's full‑fiber footprint covered 23.4 million premises, with 9.4 million connected. BT also brought BT Mobile back in 2026 for its broadband customers, showing how the cables might look reassuringly familiar despite the technology change.