Want fast internet? Move to Ebbsfleet, Kent

100Mbps broadband speeds offered by fibre-optics

10 January 2008 15:17 GMT / By Stuart Miles

Want lighting fast broadband in your home? Then you need to move to Ebbsfleet in Kent.

Lucky home-owners moving into the new 1000 acre site in the "Garden of England" will get access to fibre-optic cable for their broadband rather than the standard copper wiring giving them broadband speeds upto 100Mbps.

Approximately 10,000 homes at Ebbsfleet Valley, along with six million sq. ft of commercial space and three million sq. ft of retail, leisure and community facilities will have access to the cabling being provided by BT.

The new cabling would allow multiple HDTV channels to be watched simultaneously, HDTV gaming, and near instant music downloads.

Steve Robertson, chief executive of BT Openreach, said: “This is our first deployment of fibre rather than copper to residential customers on a new build site. It will enable communication providers to gauge what demand exists for very high speed broadband, and to assess what commercial models may be appropriate in the future”.

BT has said that it would like to make greater use of fibre in suitable new build sites, and a significant opportunity is presented by the Government’s plan to build 3 million new houses by 2020.

This investment however, according to the company, critically depends upon an agreement with Ofcom, which is currently engaged in consultation about how best to extend the regulatory framework to accommodate future fibre deployment.

All current regulation is based upon BT offering wholesale products over copper.