BT Talks 'Ultrafast' 300Mb Broadband by Next Spring

Fast enough for you?

UK telecoms provider British Telecom has announced that it has successfully trialled "FTTP on demand" in St Agnes, Cornwall. FTTP, or Fibre to the Premise broadband, is an evolution of BT's FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) solution and allows additional fibre to be run on demand to a home or business in an FTTC-enabled area. BT said today that while FTTP speeds weren't previously possible in FTTC-enabled areas, it has developed a solution that takes advantage of the fibre it has already deployed between the exchange and the street cabinet.

So, what does this mean for the rest of us? Well, according to BT, the development means FTTP could be made available anywhere in BT's fibre footprint. BT plans to make the service, which is capable of offering speeds of up to 300Mbps, commercially available to all communications providers by the spring of next year.

"FTTP on demand is a significant development for Broadband Britain. Essentially, it could make our fastest speeds available wherever we deploy fibre," said Openreach chief executive Olivia Garfield said. "This will be welcome news for small businesses who may wish to benefit from the competitive advantage that such speeds provide."

BT plans to carry out more FTTP tests this coming summer in preparation for next spring. For now, though, Garfield says the company intends to double the speed of its standard fibre broadband. This means that, in a few months' time, ISPs will be able to offer customers broadband speeds of up to 80Mbps as opposed to 40Mbps. At present, seven million premises in the UK now have access to fibre broadband via BT's network. BT expects this figure to hit 10 million this year and two thirds of the UK by the end of 2014.