British Telecom is set to announce that it will almost double the reach of it’s broadband service in England by spring 2011, reports the Times of London. The telecoms group will expand the reach of its copper line-based broadband network to cover 75 per cent of Britain, a move that will please rural dwellers who suffer slow or unreliable broadband speeds.
Only about 40 per cent of the UK’s homes and businesses are covered by BT’s fast copper network, which offers speeds of up to 24 megabits a second. BT’s copper network reaches 99 per cent of Britain’s homes and businesses, offering a theoretical speed of up to eight megabits a second. However, many users get a much lower speed because of their distance from an exchange.
In March, using the ADSL2+ technology, BT had identified six locations in the UK where demand for super-fast broadband was the highest, such as Belfast, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London and Greater Manchester
The upgrade will play an important part in realising the Government’s vision, set out in its Digital Britain report, of ensuring that everybody has access to broadband services of at least two megabits a second by 2012.
The move is separate to the company’s plan to roll out its fibre-optic network to 40 per cent of UK homes and businesses by 2012 at a cost of £1.5 billion. BT’s local access division Openreach will use the FTTP technology to replace the existing copper wire and deploy fibre optic cable from BT’s exchanges to cabinets at street corners at 29 exchanges across the UK. About 1.5 million homes will be connected to the new network by next summer.
Other countries such as South Korea and Japan enjoying broadband speeds of about 100Mbps. The Australian Government will finance a A$43 billion ($31 billion) high-speed broadband network, leading a new private-public company. The fibre-optic network, central to Rudd’s winning election campaign in late 2007, will be Australia’s biggest reliance yet on public-private partnerships. A consortium comprising wealthy Australian businessmen and telecoms industry veterans had been favorite to win the project ahead of Optus, which is owned by Singapore Telecommunications, and Canada’s Axia NetMedia.
The Australian Broadband Plan envisions a newly formed company laying 100mbps fiber optic cable to 90 percent of homes and schools, and getting 12 Mbps wireless access to those who live in rural and remote Australia. The build-out will employ at least 25,000 workers a year and up to 37,000 at its peak.
It’s in stark contrast to the situation in the U.S. where around $7 billion was committed to improving only “rural broadband” in the Stimulus package, notes Fast Company.
