Britain’s fixed line telecom firm, the BT Group, is planning to increase its outsourcing to India, and may set up a Research and Development (R&D) center in the country, said Clive Ansell, Group Strategy Director, BT.

Ansell said that BT was looking at investing more in India, attracted by the skill sets of its workforce. “Given the skill base it makes real sense to look at India very seriously to do some of our research,” he stated.

He said that BT spends about $450 million on offshoring to India and that was going to rise. “It clearly will go up, it will go up fairly significantly, but it will be on a growth curve. The average skill set per dollar outsourced is rising all the time and at the moment, India seems able to deal with that.”

The company also has technical support centers in some east European countries.

“However, the bulk of the software required to upgrade our existing fixed line network in the U.K. will be developed in India,” Ansell said.