Broadband News

BT doubles Infinity customers and fibre broadband speeds

Friday 3 February, 2012

By Anthony Hill

Telecoms giant will boost its “superfast” BT Infinity from 40Mb to 80Mb in 2012 as take-up continues to climb.

The number of people subscribing to BT Infinity - BT’s superfast broadband service - doubled in the second half of last year.

Over 400,000 broadband users had signed up to BT Infinty by 31 December, 2011, up from over 200,000 at the end of June 2011, according to the telecom giants latest financial results.

Between the end of September and the start new year, an extra 95,000 customers signed up for the fibre optic broadband. BT Infinity is built on a fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) network, offering download speeds of up to 40Mb.

It uses optical fibre for all except the few hundred metres to customers’ homes, where traditional copper wires take over.

BT chief executive Ian Livingston said: “Our fibre roll-out has accelerated, bringing superfast broadband within reach of over seven million homes and businesses, and we remain the number one broadband retailer with over six million customers.”

Over seven million home and businesses in the UK are now able to get fibre broadband from BT, and the company recently revealed over 170 telephone exchange locations that will be upgraded to fibre next.

BT is also planning to introduce a new, faster variant of FTTC broadband this spring. It will be approximately twice as fast as existing BT Infinity, offering speeds of up to 80Mb.

Last month, cable provider Virgin Media announced it would be doubling the speeds of over four million of its customers and boosting its top superfast speed to 120Mb. Already underway, the upgrades will continue over 18 months and is expected to be complete by mid-2013.