Analyst Predicts 600,000 BT Infinity Users By 2012

An analyst at Point Topic is predicting a very busy year for the BT Infinty project resulting in a leap from 45,000 superfast broadband connections to over 600,000 by 2012.

Tim Johnson, chief analyst at Point Topic, said that BT has to reach this level if it is to show that the investment in superfast networks is credible.

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If the prediction is fulfilled, it will still mean that only three percent of the country will be enjoying 25 megabits per second (Mbps) connectivity using fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) and fibre to the premises (FTTP). This will create a three tier divide between superfast, fast and rural connection speeds.

Another one percent (around 200,000 users) will be using Virgin Media’s 50Mbps cable connections.

“We’re sticking our neck out a bit with this. You have to assume that BT can achieve a big increase in its superfast rollout rate during 2011,” Johnson said. “They have to show both that the demand is there and that they have the technology to supply it. It’s going to be very exciting to see if they manage it.”

Last October, BT Infinity was adding about 3,000 customers a week and new orders were running at 4,000 a week. This will have to be ramped up to 9,000 connections per week in the first half of 2011 and 14,000 in the second half to reach the total Point Topic has forecast.

Johnson said that the number of premises BT Infinity can reach will increase from the 600,000 level it had in the middle of last year to over six million by the end of 2011.

BT Openreach was overstretched by superfast broadband earlier last year but the third quarter saw a vast improvement in its ability to install the system. Point Topic is assuming that this will continue to improve as engineers become more familiar with the procedures. But there are other issues that may influence the figures.

“Our forecast is still very vulnerable to a wide range of potential problems,” Johnson explained. “It could be hit by anything from the weather to a double-dip recession.”

Another potential problem is the backfill one of scaling up to more customers while maintaining the speed for the growing number of existing users. Johnson dismissed this as unlikely in the light of what has been achieved with other broadband initiatives in the past, notably DSL and local loop unbundling.