BT revealed on Wednesday the towns and cities that will get high-speed fibre broadband in the second stage of its £1.5bn rollout.
The rollout of fibre — whose high speeds are expected to enable a new range of online business and consumer services — is widely regarded as the next major battle between broadband providers. BT's current rollout pits it against Virgin Media, which covers 50 percent of the country with its own fibre deployment, for future dominance of the UK's broadband market.
Almost 70 exchanges have been named to receive fibre broadband, using a mixture of fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) and fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC).
The more expensive option, FTTP, could theoretically bring downstream speeds of up to 100Mbps and upstream speeds of 40Mbps. The less costly FTTC could deliver downstream speeds of up to 40Mbps and an uplink of between 5Mbps and 10Mbps.
Earlier this year, BT named the first set of 29 exchanges destined to be upgraded to fibre, covering some 500,000 homes and businesses.
Wednesday's announcement of a further 69 exchanges will put faster broadband within the reach of an additional 1.5 million homes, set to be fibre-enabled by summer next year.
The telecommunications company has already fibre-enabled the north London suburb of Muswell Hill and the Cardiff suburb of Whitchurch, it announced on Monday.
The fibre deployment is part of BT's plan to eventually cover 40 percent of the UK population with fibre access by 2012.
However, the government believes a significant proportion of the UK will remain outside fibre coverage without intervention. To that end, as part of the Digital Britain report released last month, the government is proposing a 50p-per-month levy on all broadband lines in order to fund next-generation deployments to areas that would otherwise remain unserved by the market.
BT recently cast doubt on the ability of the 50p tax to bring fibre to 100 percent of the population, saying it expects to see a fifth of the population without high-speed services.
The 69 locations named by BT are:
- East of England: Berkhamsted, Billericay, Brentwood, Elstree, Hainault, Hoddesdon, Lea Valley, Loughton, Stanford-le-Hope, Waltham Cross and Woodfood
- East Midlands: Glossop and Hinckley
- London: Barking, Barnet, Eltham, Greenwich, Hornchurch, Ingrebourne, New Southgate, Ponders End, Sidcup, Slade Green and Stamford Hill
- North-east: Chester-le-Street, Durham, East Herrington and Hetton-le-Hole
- North-west: Altrincham, Ashton-under-Lyme, Cheetham, Chorlton, Denton, Hyde, Manchester East, Moss Side, Prestwich, Staylbridge, Swinton, Greater Manchester, Urmston, Walkden and Wilmslow
- Northern Ireland: Lisburn
- Scotland: Edinburgh Corstorphine, Edinburgh Craiglockhard, Glasgow Bridgeton and Glasgow Giffnock
- South-east: Basingstoke and Dartford
- South-west: Bristol North, Bristol West and Downend
- Wales: Barry, Caerphilly and Penarth
- West Midlands: Birmingham, Fallings Park, Great Barr, Leamore West, Nuneaton, Tettenhall, Wednesbury and Walsall
- Yorkshire: Armely, Castleford, Headingley, Low Moor, Pontefract and Shipley
Talkback
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Looking at the list of exchanges to be enabled in the East of England - I live in the East - near Lowestoft in Suffolk - these exchanges are suburban London!
if you look at the Brentwood exchange on samknows it servers 21,000 residential propertiesm, Lowestoft serves 31,000! Come on BT sort yourselves out and get us fttc in Lowestoft quickly! Most of the town are under 2mb as urban sprawl has been quite exaggerated.
None of those exchanges listed as East of England are actually anywhere near the East of England. The most easterly counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, don't even get a look in. As has already been said, smaller exchanges seem to be being given priority status just because they are near the M25. Well, lucky them that have good motorway access and an extra fast lane in the broadband highway as well. BT need to get their act together and sort out places like Lowestoft as a TOP priority.
In this rural area we need the faster connection more than anyone else. There isn't that much going for this area as it is, with continuous job losses, poor job prospects, very poor road network etc. People think it is tough just because we have a recession, but for many people who live and are lucky enough to have a job in this area, it's tough ALL the time. But with a super fast broadband connection it will at least seem as though we are going places!
I have just looked at the exchanges to be enabled up until and including the early part of 2012. Guess what .... not a single true "East of England" exchange is listed to be enabled and certainly not Lowestoft, Great Yarmouth or Norwich.
Totally appalling and it's no wonder why everyone is ditching BT in their droves to sign up for their phone line rental with other providers.
What do we want:- Fibre Optic Broadband.
When do we want it:- NOW ..... pretty please - but I wont hold my breath! ;-)