BT has released its own super-fast broadband service, joining Virgin in the battle to provide the nation with a new generation in broadband. The new service will be capable of speeds up to 40Mbps, a huge improvement on the recent top speeds of about 8Mbps.
The service has been named BT Infinity, and it went on sale on January 25. Customers who have had their lines upgraded already will be able to get the service straight away, and packages start at £19.99 plus a line rental of £11.54.
Until now, Virgin has been the only broadband provider to offer the service, and the battle is already heating up between the two companies. Virgin is making it very clear that it is the only one to offer customers speeds of up to 50Mbps. However, this extra 10Mbps will cost an extra £10 per month, so whether it is worth it will be a question for customers to decide.
Virgin has also highlighted its more generous fair-usage policy. Virgin claims that none of its 40,000 customers have ever gone over its fair-usage limit, compared to BT’s cheapest service which only allows 20GB of downloads a month. However, BT has hit back by saying that its £25 service allows a very generous 100GB download limit a month.
The BT service will only be available to a few hundred thousand people in parts of London, Cardiff and Glasgow to start with. It will soon spread to other areas and will reach about half of the country in the near future, with 4 million having access to the service by the end of the year.
By the time the 2012 Olympics arrive, BT is hoping to get its fibre optic wires to 10 million homes through an investment of £1.5 billion.
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