BT to cover most of London with fibre by 2011
July 23, 2010 at 3:41 pm
There was good news for broadband users in London recently as BT announced that it will be rolling out its super-fast broadband service to nearly the whole of London in 2011.
BT’s original plan was to cover 40% of homes with high-speed broadband by 2013, so the new plans are much more ambitious in scope and really show just how important it is for BT to provide faster broadband to the country.
BT will invest over £2.5 billion in order to upgrade its current infrastructure. When the rollout is complete, two million homes and businesses (or 87% of the population of London) will have access to high-speed fibre-optic broadband with speeds of up to 100Mbps available.
And BT is not waiting around: 100,000 homes already have access to high-speed broadband, and the rollout is going to be rapid. BT has confirmed that it wants to offer the service to two thirds of the UK by 2015, which is great news for anyone living outside the capital.
The news means that the battle continues to heat up between BT and Virgin Media. Virgin currently provides a high-speed service up to 50Mbps, and BT is keen to dominate the market in London as this would stand it in good stead to expand around the country.
But although no one is in any doubt about the importance of high-speed broadband for the UK economy, will there be huge demand for the service at first? It really depends on what people are willing to pay, and how much BT will charge, which is yet to be disclosed.
