LONDON -- O2 and BT Wholesale today announced a significant extension to their existing relationship, which allowed O2 to enter the fixed-line market for business customers back in 2009. The new contract extension, in itself worth several hundreds of millions of pounds over five years, will see the two companies working together to provide an integrated suite of ICT services for UK businesses.

The agreement includes connectivity, infrastructure and professional services agreements. The combination of O2 and BT Wholesale’s portfolio will enable O2 to offer its business customers a fully-integrated suite of ICT services, to include mobile, Ethernet and fibre broadband for the very first time.

In addition to superfast connectivity on O2’s growing 4G network - which now covers a third of the UK population - business customers will also benefit from speeds of up to 80 megabits per second over BT’s fibre broadband network. Additionally, O2 will benefit from BT Wholesale’s extensive national Ethernet network and product portfolio, which includes the widest range of access options in the market, to underpin their own fixed line based services.

BT Group plc (NYSE: BT; London: BTA)