BT Is About To Make London’s Broadband Faster Than Ever

BT is set to provide a welcome boost of speed for thousands of Londoners following an expansion of the company’s fibre broadband network across the capital.

360,000 homes and businesses will now be able to access fibre broadband within the next two years as BT looks to cut down on so-called ‘blackspots’ of poor connectivity, taking its coverage to more than 95 percent of the city.

The new network will help London’s businesses compete on a global scale and ensure that the capital is not being held back by poor connectivity, BT told the Evening Standard.

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“Independent data shows that 95 percent of London premises can already access fibre broadband, but our aim is to go further,” said BT chief executive Gavin Patterson. “Even though the European Union places the UK top of its five largest countries for broadband, we have never been distracted from the need to go on doing more for those on the slowest speeds.”

Today’s announcement also gained significant praise from Ed Vaizey, the digital economy minister, who outlined how the digital landscape of the UK is undergoing “a dramatic transformation”.

“Today’s BT announcement that it will be extending its rollout of fibre in London is fantastic news for the 360,000 homes and businesses that will benefit, and will help make sure that 95 per cent of the UK can access superfast speeds by 2017,” he added.

The programme is the latest investment in BT’s fibre network, as its Openreach network infrastructure arm has already spent around £150m the capital as part of a £3 billion nationwide plan.

Speaking at an event in London last week, Patterson outlined BT’s plan to surpass government expectations and bring speeds of between 5Mbps and 10Mbps to every home and business in the UK. This is part of wider plans to expand fibre coverage beyond the government’s existing 95 percent target by 2017 and to deliver ultrafast broadband of up to 1Gbps to 10 million homes by the end of the next decade.

BT is even looking beyond this with trials of G.Fast technology, which increases speeds on copper cables to those approaching fibre. Most ultrafast-enabled properties,should have access to 300Mbps to 500Mbps by 2030 with 1Gbps possible if the building has access to fibre to the premise (FTTP).

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