Competitors Tie In BT Fibre ‘Race to Infinity’
Six areas have all reached 100 percent of votes in BT’s scheme to drum up interest in rural fibre broadband
BT’s Race to Infinity campaign, designed to drum up interest in the carrier’s fibre broadband products in rural areas, will come to an end at midnight on Friday night – and as of Friday afternoon, 100 percent of customers in the the top six areas had all apparently registered their interest in the scheme.
As of Friday, Whitchurch in Hampshire, Baschurch in Shropshire, Innerleithen in the Scottish Borders, Caxton in Cambridgeshire, Madingley in Cambridgeshire, Blewbury in Oxfordshire and Marton in Warwickshire all stood at 100 percent, meaning, in theory, that all of the customers in those areas had voted to have fibre broadband brought in.
Tied results
Whitchurch ranked highest on the list because of its larger population of customers relative to the others – a total of 2,460 – according to BT’s scheme.
Baschurch was second with all 1,432 customers having voted and Innerleithen followed with 1,956 votes.
More than 2,000 areas took part in the campaign, but only 20 areas came up with the more than 1,000 votes needed to be included for consideration.
Five winners will be chosen based on how great a percentage of the population voted, meaning the six areas with 100 percent of votes could all be eligible to win.
BT has also said it will “engage with” areas where more than 75 percent of customers voted, without guaranteeing to provide fibre broadband access.
BT said it will announce the winners in the first week of January and that exchanges will be enabled “by early 2012”.
Rollout progressing
BT has set up partnerships in Northern Ireland and Cornwall to deliver fibre to rural areas. And the government has said it would make £530 million available to help companies reach other rural areas.
BT spokesmen at a recent fibre demonstration also reiterated the fact that the rollout of its fibre network, which will be open to all other communication providers, is one of the fastest in the world. It stated that its networks passes the equivalent of the population of Singapore every quarter.
BT has said more than two million premises now have access to fibre broadband. That number will increase to four million by the end of 2010, with BT planning to pass 10 million premises in 2012, and two-thirds of UK premises (approx 16.5 million premises) in 2015.
