London in broadband sprint for the Olympic and Paralympic games
BT announces major roll-out plan for the capital
Londoners are set to benefit from a major roll-out of super-fast broadband, BT announced today. The capital will see huge levels of investment from BT as the company makes London one of the best connected capital cities well in advance of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Under the plan revealed today, 87 per cent of homes and small businesses in London will be served by exchanges enabled for fibre broadband by Spring 2011 (large companies already have access to such services on a private basis). 1
This follows the recent news that, assuming an acceptable environment for investment, BT is planning to invest an additional £1 billion on top of the £1.5 billion it has already announced to extend fibre broadband to around two-thirds of UK homes by 2015. BT's previous undertaking was to get fibre-based services to around 40 per cent of the UK in 2012.
As well as announcing its fibre roll-out plan, BT confirmed that the vast majority of homes and businesses in Greater London already have access to much faster copper broadband as well.
More than 90 per cent of households and businesses in Greater London currently have access to advanced copper broadband speeds of up to 20Mb/s and BT expects this availability to rise further in the future. BT has upgraded almost all of its telephone exchanges in London to deliver these faster speeds.
The parallel roll-out plans will ensure that London is one of the best connected cities in the world for broadband.
Fibre-based broadband currently delivers speeds of between up to 40Mb/s and up to 100Mb/s depending on which service is deployed. 2 Under the plans revealed today, 114 exchanges across the capital - serving more than 2 million homes and businesses - will be upgraded to deliver such services by spring 2011.
This is an addition to the 500,000 premises in London which will have access to the service by late summer. BT has already started to upgrade the local network to fibre based broadband in parts of Muswell Hill, Canonbury, Chingford, Edmonton, Enfield, Thamesmead and Tottenham. 100,000 homes and businesses in these areas now have the option of experiencing super-fast broadband.
Openreach, the part of BT that is responsible for deploying fibre, is making the technology available on an open, wholesale basis to all companies providing broadband services. Consumers and businesses can contact their broadband service provider to place an order or register their interest in receiving the service.
The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, said: "Speed is the essence of so many Olympic sports and as the Games return to London for a third time, it's vital that we should be able to access and enjoy them at record speeds.
"We are the home of so much technological innovation. The illustrious progenitor of the internet, Tim Berners-Lee, was born in this great city and it would be the ultimate tribute to him if London had the best digital games ever, not to mention the lifetime legacy of stronger internet infrastructure."
Ian Livingston, chief executive, BT Group said: "London is already one of the best connected cities in the world and our investment plan will ensure that it stays ahead of the pack. Our investment will see Londoners have access to both fibre and advanced copper broadband services well in advance of the London Olympics.
"With BT as its official communications partner, London 2012 looks set to be the best connected Games yet. The infrastructure that we are putting in place will allow people to watch the event in high definition and engage with the Games using a range of exciting, interactive services. More importantly, the new broadband network will be a lasting legacy, enabling those living and work in London to prosper and the capital's economy to thrive well into the future."
Super-fast broadband speeds are more than enough to run multiple bandwidth-hungry applications at the same time. For example, some members of a family could be watching different high definition (HD) movies, while others are gaming or working on complex graphics or video projects. Music tracks could be downloaded in less than five seconds. Such speeds also offer businesses major advantages such as HD videoconferencing and access to ‘cloud computing' technology.
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1 Refers to lines served by a BT exchange. For a variety of reasons, it is likely that a small minority of premises within the selected exchange areas will not be able to be served by this technology in the short term. However, Openreach is actively looking at alternative solutions for these locations.
2 BT's Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) service will deliver download speeds of up to 40Mb/s, while BT's Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) service will deliver speeds of up to 100Mb/s.
