NEWS BT had set a launch date of November for the trials of its 8Mbps ADSL broadband Max service, with a full rollout expected in spring 2006.
The launch of this faster broadband is key for BT as it recovers from the failure of SDSL to capture a large market.
The announcement comes after what Cameron Rejali, managing director, products and strategy for BT Wholesale, described as "highly successful" technical trials which generated positive feedback and high demand from both service providers and end-customers involved in the trial.
BT has already conducted trials of the service in London and Strathclyde. The wider market trial phase will include an initial 25 exchanges, rising to 53 exchanges as the trial progresses. The selected trial exchanges will be located in Cornwall, Greater London, Northern Ireland, South Glamorgan and Strathclyde.
BT will initially run the trial with 50,000 end users and, "depending on the successful progress of the trial", aims to get 150,000 end users signed up.
Colin Barker writes for ZDNet UK
Comments
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1. Jon Pennycook
NTL are trialling 20Mb/s broadband, and 10Mb/s will soon be the standard...
2. anonymous
It would be nice if they could spend some time and energy getting my 1MB service up to the 2MB they promised rather than all this effort on an 8MB service that the majority will never need.
3. Simon
BT underwhelmed by takeup of SDSL - well that's a surprise (not !).
The just in cost from ADSL to SDSL means that most people will simply not consider it worth the extra - and if you are wanting symmetric service, there are other providers around.
It will be interesting to see if anyone starts offering flexibility of bandwidth allocation, or if we're heading for 8M down and still oimited to a pathetic 256k up !