BT (NYSE: BT) may be making progress with its Fiber to the X (FTTX) build out plans, but given the billions it's investing in this new network the incumbent service provider has issued its "Race to Infinity" survey to see how much interest consumers have in fiber-based broadband.
Running until the end of December, the "Race to Infinity" survey will enable BT to identify "hot spots" of demand for its 40 Mbps Fiber to the Cabinet (FTTC) and 100 Mbps Fiber to the premises (FTTP)-based broadband internet access services and influence its future deployment plans.
To motivate communities to participate, BT is running the Race to Infinity survey as a competition where it would dedicate investments to the five exchanges with the highest demand by early 2012.
The incumbent carrier will then work with any community that has a high level of interest to determine all the potential methods they can use to bring fiber-based broadband to their area. If a community does not win the competition, but happens to collect 75 percent of possible votes for their exchange, BT will still examine how they can serve them with fiber-based broadband.
"The Race to Infinity is an opportunity for the country to make its voice heard," said Gavin Patterson, BT Retail chief executive in a release. "BT will have rolled out fibre to more than four million homes by the end of 2010 but it'll still have more than 12 million premises to pass by 2015."
In May, BT said it would spend $3.97 billion to roll out fiber-based broadband to two thirds of UK residences by 2015. By the end of 2010, BT plans to pass four million residences with its 40 Mbps FTTC-based service.
For more:
- see the release here
- Telecompaper has this article
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