Broadband News

100Mb for Kent residents in 2008

(10-01-08) - BT today announced that the first residential fibre-optic cable connections will be live in August this year, connecting up to 10,000 homes in Ebbsfleet Valley, Kent.

Because the new-build site is not already connected by the old copper wire cables used by the rest of the country for broadband connections, BT (www.BT.com) can install a super-fast fibre network at a much lower cost than elsewhere.

Once live, approximately 10,000 homes and nine million square feet of commercial, retail, leisure and community facilities will have access to the fastest broadband service in the UK, offering speeds of up to 100Mb.

Such speeds would allow multiple HDTV channels to be watched simultaneously, HDTV gaming, and near instant music downloads.

The network, which will be maintained by BT Openreach - the wholesale arm of BT - and all UK ISPs will have the opportunity to resell the product.

Steve Robertson, chief executive of 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.”

Michael Phillips, BroadbandChoices.co.uk product director, said: “If this first deployment of residential fibre broadband connections is a success, we could see speeds of up to 100Mb in all new-build housing sites.

“However, while this could highlight demand for such speeds, the sheer cost of replacing the old copper wires with fibre in other areas means that the rest of the UK will still have to wait before it catches up with countries such as Japan, the US and even France and Germany.”

BT’s 21 Century Network, offering speeds of up to 24Mb across the UK, will go live this spring.

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