BT speeds up its ?1.5bn broadband roll-out

[gmb45]

BT is doubling its efforts to bring super-fast broadband to 1.5m British homes and businesses.

The telecoms group said it will roll out 40 megabits per second (Mb) fibre optic broadband internet to 1m homes by March next year, up from previous plans to cover half a million homes.

BT said 1.5m homes will have 40Mbs broadband ? fast enough to watch live high definition TV ? by next summer.

Steve Robertson, chief executive of BT's OpenReach division, which is responsible for broadband, said: "Fibre is the future and so we're speeding up the pace of our plans.

"BT has invested billions in creating Broadband Britain yet it has done so whilst offering others equal access to its network ? demonstrating once again that competition doesn't have to be a barrier to investment."

The roll-out is part of BT's pledge to spend ?1.5bn in bringing super-fast broadband to 10m homes, or 40pc of the country, by 2012.

The speeding up of the roll-out will reassure those concerned that BT might slow down its investment following a ?1.3bn loss in the first three months of the year due to massive problems at its Global Services IT division.

Virgin Media, BT's main competitor in the broadband space, said BT's efforts were still lacking in ambition.

"Virgin Media already offers the fastest broadband in the country with our ultra-fast 50Mb service," a company spokesman said. "By the end of this summer we will have completed our next generation roll out to 12.5m homes and we're already piloting 200Mb.

"We've been saying for years that fibre optic broadband is the future."

Together, BT and Virgin's plans will cover about 50pc of UK homes, mainly in towns and cities.

BT said there is "no commercial case" for extending the coverage beyond 50pc. But said it would consider rolling its network out to up to 90pc of the country if the terms of Government subsidies were attractive.

Last month Lord Carter, the communications minister, announced a new 50p per month broadband tax will be levied on every home and business with a phone line in order to raise ?1.5bn to pay for next generation internet to 90pc of the population by 2017.

Analysts at UBS estimate that it could cost BT a further ?3bn to extend super-fast broadband to 90pc of homes.

BT this week axed plans to roll-out controversial advertising software developed by Phorm, to concentrate on super-fast broadband.

[chroma]

i heard Phorm was off the table, been given the boot temporarily.

And it seems like a lot of digging around to lay that much fiber, you thik they woulda teamed up with that group who had looked into the prospect of fibering up sewer and drainage lines, meaning you could roll out 10x as much fiber at the same or less cost and disruption.

[mes king]

bt are doing tests in scottland of fiber optic but has still not done testing in other areas yet only 1 person in scott land has the fiber optic.

[janobi]

bt are doing tests in scottland of fiber optic but has still not done testing in other areas yet only 1 person in scott land has the fiber optic.

They are testing it all over mate. Cardiff has it also, but they are only testing it. They recently tested teh fibre optic 21CN network, and it blew up when they turned it on. So I dont think its going to be working anytime soon.