It is almost nine months since British Telecom has set out plan to bring super-fast broadband to up to 10 million homes and businesses in the UK by 2012.
This is a bold plan for the future. BT intend to invest £1.5bn in the next few years – which is a huge sum of money, especially in today’s economic environment. BT need to make a good commercial return on that investment which is why BT is working closely with industry, local and regional authorities to make sure that we take super-fast broadband to areas where there is genuine customer demand.
This is a bold plan for the future. BT intend to invest £1.5bn in the next few years – which is a huge sum of money, especially in today’s economic environment. BT need to make a good commercial return on that investment which is why BT is working closely with industry, local and regional authorities to make sure that we take super-fast broadband to areas where there is genuine customer demand.
So, what’s the latest news?
Today, Openreach has announced the areas where, from January 2010, up to 500,000 customers will have access to fibre-based, super-fast broadband via our network. This fibre to the cabinet (FTTC)* technology will be deployed at 29 exchanges including parts of Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Greater Manchester; also at rural exchanges near Halifax and Cardiff. Areas serving a further million homes and businesses will be announced in the Autumn.
Whilst Openreach will deploy the technology, it is up to the UK’s communications providers to develop the super-fast, innovative broadband services for their end-users. The same is true for our downstream businesses, like BT Retail, as super-fast broadband is an outstanding opportunity to retain existing customers as well as winning back customers from our competitors. Our upstream speeds of up to 10mb/s will be the fastest in the country, enabling all sorts of new and exciting applications and services to be developed.
Other things to get ready:
Ofcom has recently said that it will play its part in making sure that regulation does not stand in the way of companies that are prepared to invest in creating the UK’s broadband future. It will allow pricing flexibility at the retail and wholesale levels to enable returns appropriate to the considerable risks of building new networks. This is positive news, though still more to come on the regulatory front BT is counting down to July when we run FTTC pilots in both Muswell Hill, London and in Whitchurch, Cardiff. Five communications providers are taking part in these pilots with up to 15,000 customer premises involved in each area.
Many parts of the company are involved in making sure that the technical and operational delivery of super-fast broadband are flawless – and there has been some great team work in bringing this together a premium fibre service has to come with a superb customer experience. We are building this in from the start, working through all the various touch points a customer would have so that the service works right first time.
The UK already leads the world in terms of broadband access and penetration. Our plans for super-fast broadband will help the UK climb the broadband speed tables as well.
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