BT Infinity Fibre Optic Broadband rollout

BT Broadband's (www.BT.com/Infinity) superfast fibre optic broadband packages offer speeds of up to 38Mb, 76Mb and 100Mb at great value prices.

At launch, BT Infinity (www.BT.com/Infinity) was available to just 500,000 homes and businesses. However, its up to 38Mb connection is already available to more than 40% of UK residences, and will be available to two-thirds of the population by 2014.

BT Infinity 2 is an up to 76Mb service offering equally impressive up to 19Mb upload speeds.

BT Infinity's Option 3 is an "ultrafast" service offering download speeds of up to 100Mb - matching the top speeds offered by Virgin Media's fastest commercial service, but with upload speeds that BT claims are 50% faster than their chief competitor.

BT's 100Mb connection is achieved via its fibre-to-the-premises network, where fibre optic cable is used to cover the entire distance from the local telephone exchange to a customer's house. The same technology is capable of delivering speeds of up to 300Mb.

Alternatives to BT Infinity

If you love speed but can't get BT Infinity in your area, Virgin Media (www.VirginMedia.com) offers a fibre optic alternative. Virgin Media's fastest package also delivers speeds up to 100Mb per second. Plus it is undertaking further upgrades to its network taking speeds up to 120Mb.

Sky (www.Sky.com) also launched two fibre packages in 2012 offering up to 38Mb and up to 76Mb broadband, however, as Sky is using BT's network to deliver its fibre broadband, if BT Infinity isn't available in your area, Sky fibre won't be either.

Why get fibre optic broadband

Fibre optic broadband delivers a faster and more reliable broadband connection than traditional copper wire ADSL connections, and suffers virtually no speed decline over distance.

Actual speeds received with a fibre connection are much closer to advertised speeds than those received via an ADSL connection. Ofcom speed tests find that BT Infinity regularly delivers speeds of at least 75-85% of the advertised speed.

BT Infinity availability

Following what BT claims is one of the fastest fibre broadband roll-outs in the world, BT Infinity will be available to 40% of UK households by 2012, rising to two-thirds of the UK population by 2014.

A further 200+ exchanges will be upgraded to BT Infinity by the end of 2013. You can see the if BT Infinity is coming to your area by visiting the fibre map on the BT website.