Superfast broadband heads for four more exchanges
BT expands number of Race to Infinity winners to 10...
BT has announced it will be speeding up another four rural backwaters of Broadband Britain - by early 2012 or sooner - by rolling out access to up to 40Mbps broadband. The decision follows its recent Race to Infinity nationwide poll of demand for superfast broadband.
The four additional exchanges that will be upgraded with fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) broadband are Burley in Wharfedale in Yorkshire, Capel in Surrey, Lindfield in West Sussex, and Marton in Warwickshire.
Villagers in Burley in Wharfedale, Yorkshire, will be able to get superfast broadband access by early 2012
Photo: Robbo-Man
BT said more than six out of 10 residents in these communities had visited its website to vote for speed hikes.
The four exchanges join six initial winners of the company's poll, announced last month: Baschurch, Shropshire; Blewbury, Oxfordshire; Caxton, Cambridgeshire; Innerleithen, Scottish Borders; Madingley, Cambridgeshire; and Whitchurch, Hampshire.
BT had originally intended to choose five winners but added a sixth owing to "extremely high levels of votes". It said it had decided to extend the list to 10 because of "the exceptional passion and commitment" of residents to get faster broadband.
The deployments are part of a £2.5bn investment by BT to roll out fibre-based broadband access to two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by 2015. The lion's share, 75 per cent, of these deployments will be FTTC, supporting broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps download and up to 10Mbps upload. A quarter of the rollout will get the faster fibre to the home (FTTH) broadband, supporting download speeds of up to 100Mbps.
Last month, BT announced it would also be rolling out FTTC to 41 market towns around the UK by spring 2012.