BT accelerates its Fiber to the X deployment timeline

BT has set an ambitious goal of connecting 10 million homes to its fiber-based broadband service by 2012--the same year that London will host the Olympic games.

Making the fiber service available in time for the Olympics is only one part of BT's overall vision, however. By spending $2.4 billion to build a fiber-based broadband network that will reach 40 percent of British households, BT wants to one-up Virgin Media's 50 Mbps service.

Ian Livingston, BT's CEO, said the company is confident they can meet their 2012 timeline. "Given the progress we're making, four million homes will have access to fiber by the end of next year," he said in a statement. "2012 will be an important year for the UK given the Olympics and so I'm keen that we provide 10 million homes with access to fiber by the time the games begin."

But BT says it can't reach its goals without some assistance. While the UK incumbent operator is happy to spend its own dollars on bringing fiber to more homes, Livingston believes the UK government needs to follow the lead of other countries (Japan, South Korea and Sweden) by providing subsidies and other incentives to encourage broadband deployments by private companies such as BT.  

"If you look around the world, several governments are proactively supporting the roll out of fiber broadband," said Livingston.

For more:
- Reuters has this article [1]

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