BT to trial 1GB Broadband in Suffolk

BT has announced that early in 2011 they will be trialing one gigabit fibre broadband in Suffolk.  The trial will demonstrate the speed capabilities of BT's fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) technology, and if it goes well they will add 40 rural market towns to its current fibre roll-out.  Those towns have yet to be announced.

According to industry regulators Ofcom, less than 1% of UK homes currently have a super-fast broadband connection.  The move by BT should support the government's plan to create the best broadband network in Europe by 2015.

However, BT has been criticised for not offering FTTH more widely because most of its fibre roll-out will rely on slower fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology.  Only a quarter of the homes it intends to offer fibre to will be connected using FTTH.

The government is set to provide £830m for firms willing to offer fast broadband services in rural areas, which it will provide "over the course of this parliament and the next".

BT said that if it was to "win funds on that scale" it would be able to provide fibre to 90% of the UK, whereas, under current plans, its fibre will only extend to 66% of the UK.

Expansion promised for BT’s super-fast fibre network

Two-thirds of the UK is to receive super-fast broadband services as BT announces that it will expand its next-generation services.


BT originally promised a £1.5bn investment in its fibre services, offering speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps) that were due to reach around 40% of the population by 2012. However, with the announcement of big profits in the year leading up to 31st March they are now able to invest a further £1bn.


This investment promises to see the project roll out to a further 20% of the population by 2015 with the first four million people will be connected by the end of the year. The expansion of fibre services has been enabled by the firm's return to profit.


Many rural communities have become frustrated by the slow roll-out of fibre services and have begun to offer their own. Rutland village Lyddington broke away from BT after the telco said it was too expensive to offer fibre services.


After successfully "unbundling" the Lyddington telephone cabinet, locally-based Rutland Telecom has had enquiries from 200 other villages keen to do the same thing.

Smallest County - Biggest Broadband

A tiny village in Oakham has raised £37,000 to offer 200 homes the super-fast broadband that neither BT nor Virgin could deliver.

Getting fast broadband to rural areas has recently been an issue for political debate and is back in the spotlight as the government shelves its funding plans. The residents of Lyddington had tried all the big suppliers and had been told that it was not economically viable to provide fast services to the village. In the end they decided they couldn’t wait and have set up their own Telecoms Company.

It is estimated that around 2.5 million homes in the UK cannot get broadband speeds of more than 2Mbps. Award winning Rutland Telecom now offer the residents of Lyddington speeds of up to 40Mbps (megabits per second). The scheme was a joint effort between villagers fed up with slow broadband speeds and a local ICT firm that was reselling BT's broadband.



The process was a slow one but Rutland Telecom, with the help of Ofcom, have had their very own fibre-optic cable put into a street cabinet in the village. After two years of persistence the network is up and running and already has 50 customers.

 

"For the first time in UK telecommunications history the telephone lines of customers are completely cut off from the local BT exchange," said Rutland Telecom director Mark Melluish.

Rutland Telecom has been approached by 40 other rural community groups to see if a similar solution is possible in their area. It is on the verge of launching similar schemes in neighbouring Leicestershire and one in Wales.




Results by independent analyst Speedtest.Net demonstrate Rutland Telecom broadband speeds are over 3x faster than all other ISPs.