Broadband Guide

Orange fibre optic broadband

Thursday 24 November, 2011

By Helen Thomas

Orange broadband (www.Orange.co.uk) outsourced management of its fixed-line broadband to BT (www.BT.com) in 2010 as part of a five-year agreement to increase Orange broadband coverage and improve its network performance.

The relationship allows Orange to take advantage of the developments BT is making to its network.

To find out the fibre broadband products available in your area use our postcode checker.

Plans for superfast broadband

Although Orange has yet to release details of its own plans for fibre broadband products, it has commented on the £2.5billion fibre investment plans, announced by BT in October 2011, to:

• launch its 110Mb fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) service
• use the same technology to deliver download speeds of up to 300Mb by early 2012
• double “up to” speeds from 40Mb to 80Mb in 2012
• increase fibre broadband coverage from the current 20% of the UK to 40% by next year and to two-thirds of the population by 2015 - and BT already claim to be a year ahead of schedule

Sylvain Thevenot, marketing director for Orange Home Broadband, said: “We are very excited about the fibre opportunity and believe offering customers affordable prices, coupled with a great customer experience, is key to increased customer take up in the UK.”

Government broadband strategy

Developing the UK’s superfast broadband network is top of the agenda for the current government. In 2010, culture secretary Jeremy Hunt outlined the government’s £830million investment plans to deliver the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

Virgin Media and BT are currently at the forefront of the superfast broadband revolution with multi-millions already invested in their fibre networks. Orange’s current relationship with BT leaves it well placed to make the most of the planned developments.

The benefits of fibre?

There are several benefits to a fibre optic connection:

• No drop in connection speed - even when multiple users are online at the same time, via the same connection
• Super-quick download times - even high-definition (HD) films can download in just minutes
• No buffering delays to interrupt your favourite TV shows
• Eliminates irritating connection lags when gaming.

Fibre optic v traditional phone line

Traditional broadband was once the new kid on the block, providing a fast, regular internet connection - for the time. But fibre optic broadband has arrived, stolen the new kid’s pedal bike, added a motor, and upped the broadband speed ante in a big way.

Fibre cables are designed to transfer data at a superfast pace, without the drop off in speeds that occur with telephone wire connections over increasing distance. This means that where regular broadband speeds are regularly half, or less, of the advertised “up to” speeds, broadband delivered by fibre is usually an impressive 80-100% the advertised speed.