100Mbps broadband rollout widens

Original fibre to the premises plans doubled

12 October 2009 9:40 GMT / By Duncan Geere

BT has announced that its plans to deliver super-fast, fibre-optic broadband all the way to people's houses have been expanded. The company will now be rolling out fibre-to-the-premises to 1 million homes, including some where copper wire is already available. Previously BT was only installing fibre to the premises in new build situations.

In some cases, BT will be installing fibre-optics only as far as your local telecoms cabinet, and then the signal has to travel through ageing copper wire to your house - which more than halves the available speeds. But in fibre-to-the-premises situations, there's hardly any copper involved so you get rates upto four times faster than current speeds.

The reason for the expansion is that BT is ahead of its targets for the roll-out of the fibre program. 1.5 million homes will have access by next summer, the company says, and 10 million should receive the service by 2012 - one in six of the population.

Recently, BT also announced that it'll be trialling fibre-to-the-premises for Bradwell Abbey in Milton Keynes and Highams Park in North-East London. 100Mbps speeds will be arriving in both those locations by March 2010.