Welcome to Broadband Rollout Roundup
This week we’ve not got much for you in the way of actual rollout news. However BT has been busy announcing which towns and cities in the UK are poised to get the latest batch of fibre optic goodness.
The latest string of announcements are part of BT’s £2.5 billion fibre rollout super-fast fibre broadband, which aims to cover two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by the end of 2014.
Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) and Fibre to the Home (FTTH) connections are due to hit 18 locations in the coming weeks and months; read on to see where BT will be laying cables next.
BT: 184,000 new fibre connections by Spring 2013
More homes and businesses in the Birmingham, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire, Surrey, and the Wirral areas can expect to see fibre-optic broadband lines providing speeds of up to 40Mbps – 80Mbps (FTTC) and up to 100Mbps and 300Mbps (FTTH) rolled out across the coming weeks and months.
By Spring 2013, super-fast fibre broadband will be connected to the following homes and businesses in these areas:
- 46,000 in Birmingham
- 25,400 in Cumbria
- 37,000 in Greater Manchester
- 28,000 in Lancashire
- 36,000 in Surrey
- 12,000 in Wirral
Surrey
36,000 new homes and business are due to get a mixture of 40Mbps and 100Mbps connections over the coming weeks. Locations in Cranleigh, Dorking, Epsom, Redhill and Thames Ditton are all due to get a mixture of FTTC and FTTH lines installed throughout April – no exact dates for delivery yet.
The 40Mbps lines will get a speed boost to 80Mbps this Spring with the 100Mbps lines trebling to 300Mbps.
BT has also announced plans for to connect another 95,000 premises in Surrey by Spring 2013.
Cumbria
25,400 homes and businesses will benefit from super-fast BT fibre in parts of Cumbria. 15,400 new lines in Barrow and another 10,000 in Workington will be connected by Spring 2013. No further information on exactly when these will be happening; we will of course update once we know more.
Wirral
12,000 homes and businesses in Claughton in the Wirral have been earmarked for fast fibre lines with the aim of having these all connected by Spring 2013.
This joins the 327,000 locations connected to BT fibre in the Greater Merseyside area.
Greater Manchester
37,000 new locations are in line to get some BT fibre. 13,000 businesses and homes in Eccles will get fibre while 8,900 and 16,000 in Horwich and Leigh respectively will get connected.
Lancashire
28,000 premises will get connected to high speed fibre by Spring 2013. Fleetwood homes and businesses will get more than 8,000 lines whereas in Longbridge around 3,200 properties will get fibre lines.
7,200 and 9,500 Poulton and St. Annes homes and business are in line to get fibre from BT by Spring 2013 as well.
Birmingham
46,000 new connections will be heading out to homes and businesses in Acocks Green, Highbury and Priory between now and Spring 2013.
CityFibre announces 25Mbps fibre rollout plan for York
As well as BT’s string of announcements, CityFibre has announced plans to get 95 per cent of all businesses and homes in York able to get broadband speeds of at least 25Mbps by 2014.
CityFibre has already connected 110 premises in York to next-gen fibre broadband, turning the city into a ‘fibre capital’ of the north of England.
LittleBigOne 80Mbps network arrives in South Yorkshire
LittleBigOne launched its cable TV network this week using the Digital Region footprint. Alongside TV subscription packs which will eventually include Sky Sports and Sky Movies as on-demand extras, 40Mbps broadband is also bundled in as standard.
What does FTTC and FTTH mean?
FTTC/Fibre to the Cabinet is where fibre is delivered to a street cabinet, offers download speeds of up to 40Mbps and upload speeds of up to 10Mbps. BT Openreach recently announced it will roughly double these speeds this Spring.
FTTH/Fibre to the Home (also called FTTP/Fibre to the Premises) refers to where the fibre runs all the way to homes and businesses.
BT’s FTTH currently offers download speeds of up to 100Mbps which is expected to be boosted to up to 300Mbps this Spring. By Spring 2013, BT aims to make speeds of up to 300Mbps commercially available in any area where FTTH broadband has been deployed.
Leave a Reply