BT fibre rollout accelerated
October 31, 2011
BT is accelerating its fibre rollout, it now plans to offer super-fast Internet speeds to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014. The target is a year ahead of its original plan.
The UK telco says its main product will offer maximum download speeds about 10 times faster than at present, at 70-100Mbps on average. That will help it compete against Virgin Media’s 100Mbps offer.
BT says it is employing an additional 520 engineers and bringing forward £300 million (€343m) of investment to achieve the goal.
The company says six million premises already have access to its fibre broadband technology, about 25 per cent of the total. It aims to increase that to about 10 million properties, or about 40 per cent of those in the UK, by the end of next year.
“Our rollout of fibre broadband is one of the fastest in the world and so it is great to be ahead of what was an already challenging schedule,” said BT’s chief executive Ian Livingston.