BT's copper broadband upgrade now hitting 2.5 million extra homes and businesses
Up to 20Mbps service to reach 90 per cent of UK premises by 2013...
BT is upgrading more of its copper broadband estatePhoto: Shandchem
BT is upgrading its copper infrastructure, extending the reach of its 'up to 20Mbps' copper broadband to around 90 per cent of UK premises during spring 2013.
The telco had previously pledged to roll out the 'up to 20Mbps' copper broadband to 80 per cent of the UK - some 20 million premises - but now plans to take the service to an additional 2.5 million homes and businesses.
The rollout will now reach 800 extra exchanges, half of which will be located in rural areas covering more than 900,000 premises between them, according to BT.
The telco plans to phase out some legacy broadband products within the upgrade area once the upgrade has taken place, with its 'up to 8Mbps' IPstream product scheduled for retirement by spring 2014.
Customers will be migrated onto "more advanced services", according to BT - although not necessarily faster services. The telco said the "vast majority" of customers will get faster speeds from the copper upgrade, and claimed "many" will see speeds roughly double. However, not all customers should expect a speed boost.
The copper push comes in parallel to BT's £2.5bn next-generation broadband investment in superfast fibre-based broadband which will bring speeds of up to 40Mbps to two-thirds of the UK by 2015 using fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) technology - which uses both copper and fibre-optic lines.
The telco believes FTTC will be capable of supporting up to 80Mbps next year as the technology evolves.
BT is also investing in full fibre to the home, which can support speeds of up to 100Mbps, for around a quarter of its next-gen rollout.
The telco's planned fibre investment does not cover the final third of the UK - for which the government has set aside £530m to help fund fibre rollouts. Local authorities in around 150 fibre-starved UK regions are required to bid for a portion of the funding and tender for contractors, such as BT, to upgrade their broadband infrastructure. The government's aim is for 90 per cent of the UK to have access to broadband speeds over 25Mbps by 2015.
BT believes the faster broadband needs of the final 10 per cent of UK premises may be best served by wireless broadband technologies, which is why the telco is currently trialling LTE and white-space broadband.