NEWS
BT is to begin its first brownfield pilot of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) in the Highams Park area of north-east London.
Previously, the IT and telecommunications giant tested a greenfield deployment FTTH at the new Ebbsfleet development in Kent, but the Highams Park pilot will mark BT's first such deployment in an existing residential area with a copper-based telecoms infrastructure.
The news was revealed by the thinkbroadband website on Friday. A spokesperson for BT confirmed the Highams Park brownfield trial to ZDNet UK, but said the company was not yet prepared to provide further details, such as the timing of the pilot.
FTTH is the most expensive way of deploying high-speed, next-generation broadband connectivity to homes and businesses, particularly where a copper infrastructure exists. BT's fibre rollout will therefore mostly entail fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), where fibre optic connectivity is extended as far as the street cabinet, and the connections between the cabinet and buildings remains copper-based.
BT began its first FTTC trial at the start of July, in the north London suburb of Muswell Hill and the Cardiff suburb of Whitchurch. The company said in July last year that it intended to roll out some form of fibre connectivity to as many as 10 million UK homes by 2012.
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1. Michael Dixon
Is this the UK definition of "superfast" or the continental and international definition?
2. Richard Davies
I wish they would do something for Scarborough. Speeds up here are awful (maybe Virgin should lay cable and we can toss BT to one side)...the trouble is that most problems are due to poor quality cable from the cabinet to the premise. This is why I don't think that FTTC will work...it has to be FTTH as you will only be as fast as your slowest link!
BT won't even class my line as having a fault unless my speed drops below 400Kbps. What a joke when you pay for so much more! I blame it on an historic lack of re-investment I.e. creaming off profits for years without putting enough back in.
At this point I would pay more to get a decent / reliable service. Trying to talk to BT / get them to do something about the problem is impossible / like trying to get blood from a stone!