The former chief executive of phone firm BT, Ben Verwaayen has been appointed as the new boss of the loss-making telecoms company Alcatel-Lucent.

The company has been struggling since the French company, Alcatel bought US based Lucent Technologies in 2006.

Ben Verwaayen was chief executive at BT for six years, stepping down in June.

It is hoped that his experience in the telecoms industry will help bring Alcatel-Lucent back into profit and create a better merged organisation.

Alcatel-Lucent, the world’s largest maker of fixed-line telecommunications equipment, also named former EADS joint chief executive Philippe Camus as its non-executive chairman.

The new team will take over from Patricia Russo and Serge Tchuruk, who did the deal to merge Alcatel and Lucent.

Clash of cultures

Analysts said that Alcatel-Lucent’s patchy performance was not helped by clash of cultures between the French and US parts of the business..

In July, the company unveiled a three-month loss of 1.1bn euros ($1.7bn; £866m) and warned sales would not improve in this quarter.

The telecoms company has suffered six successive quarterly losses since the merger.

Ben Verwaayen has been credited with turning round the fortunes of BT, fighting off stiff competition and consolidating the firm’s position in the broadband market.

Acatel-Lucent’s board said that Mr Verwaayen’s years of experience in the industry had iven him a great insight into the company.

Mr Verwaayan said: “I’m truly delighted to become the chief executive of Alcatel-Lucent, leading a company with vast assets and great talents, while recognizing the difficulties and challenges ahead.

“I am committed to building significant and sustainable value for our shareholders, customers and employees.”

The 56-year-old will take up his new position at the company on 1 October.

News reported by The BBC

BT is to invest £1.5bn in fibre optic cables, giving up to 10 million UK households access to faster broadband.

The plans would bring 40% of homes in reach of an ultra-fast service by 2012.

BT is also planning to put fibre-optic cable into about 1 million homes, making the service even faster for those customers.

However, the communications group has made clear it will only make the move if regulator Ofcom allows it to get a decent return on that investment.

Remaining customers would be offered broadband speeds of between 40 and 60 megabits a second (mbps), it said.

In order to pay for the project BT has said it will suspend its £2.5bn share buy-back programme in July – by which time it will have returned more than £1.8bn.

‘New chapter’

“Broadband has boosted the UK economy and is now an essential part of our customers’ lives,” said BT chief executive Ian Livingston.

“It looks as though this could be the moment broadband enthusiasts have been crying out for” Rory Cellan-Jones, BBC News technology correspondent

“We now want to make a step-change in broadband provision which will offer faster speeds than ever before. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in Britain’s broadband story.”

But the firm has warned that conditions need to be right for its investment.

BT has urged Ofcom to nurture a “supportive and enduring regulatory environment” which includes removing current barriers to investment and making sure that anyone who chooses to invest in fibre optics can earn a fair rate of return for their shareholders.

A spokesman for the firm said BT hoped to discuss updating its current universal service obligation with the watchdog.

Under current rules BT must provide a copper connection to all homes, however, the firm says this is out of date and unnecessary for updated services based on a fibre-optic connection.

BT’s rival Virgin Media already uses fibre-optic cables, which are faster than BT’s copper lines, although the final connection to the home user is done with traditional coaxial cable.

Meanwhile, other BT competitors including Carphone Warehouse and BSkyB are switching clients to their own networks so they do not have to rent copper lines from BT Wholesale.

Better returns

BT’s spokesman also added that the business would be hoping to get a better return on its fibre operations as it would represent a riskier investment.

“At present we are allowed a 10% return on the capital put into our Open Reach service, we would be looking for more than that,” he added.

Britain has been slower to invest in fast broadband than some countries, with BT in particular cautious about spending the large sums involved.

The group’s plans should enable homes to run so-called “multiple bandwidth-hungry applications” which would enable some family members to watch high definition movies while others were gaming or working on complex graphics projects.

Broadband comparison service broadbandchoices.co.uk welcomed the move saying it showed BT’s commitment to bringing the UK’s broadband service “up to speed” and provide better coverage for users in both rural and urban areas.

News reported by BBC