January roll out for BT's 40Mb super fast fibre broadband

BT has given more details of its roll-out of fibre broadband, which will begin in January 2010, bringing 'up to' 40Mb broadband to 29 previously announced locations including street cabinets in Belfast, Cardiff Glasgow, London and Manchester.

Live trials of the super fast broadband service are currently taking place in London and Cardiff, with more than a thousand customers already signed up in London – more than 200 testers have already been connected across the two locations since the end of August. A store has been opened in Muswell Hill, North London (where the test is being held) to show off the new service's capabilities and encourage more local residents to sign up for the trial. In store advertising claims 10 million homes and businesses will have access to fibre broadband by 2012.

Looking further ahead, BT is already trialling 100Mb fibre broadband in Ebbsfleet Valley, Kent – the fastest residential speeds in the UK – while a BT spokesperson suggested 60Mb speeds could potentially follow on the 40Mb infrastructure.

The BT spokesperson also confirmed that the majority of the fibre broadband roll-out would be FTTC, or 'fibre to the cabinet': this is the big hop from the exchange to the street cabinet, but will not solve a lot of the current problems of speeds dropping. The trial in Muswell Hill is seeing some customers receive broadband speeds of only half the 40Mb capacity. However, users are promised a speed of at least 15Mb during the trial which is still a vast improvement.

BT said a new Home Hub will accompany the January 2010 launch, with an extra port to accommodate the fibre modem. In addition, seven so far unnamed "UK communications providers are actively placing orders" while "further communications providers are expected to join the pilot later this year".

For more on BT's new Muswell Hill store, visit our blog.  

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