NEWS
BT has revealed more details on its planned brownfield pilots of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband tech.
Fibre broadband is the superfast successor to the current generation of broadband used in the UK, delivered over copper wire. By replacing copper with fibre optic cabling, telcos will be able to provide downstream connectivity of tens or hundreds of Mbps.
Bradwell Abbey in Milton Keynes will join Highams Park in London as the locations for the fibre dry-run, the telco announced yesterday.
The two trials, which will kick off in January next year, will be the first time BT has piloted FTTH in areas with existing copper broadband infrastructure. It has, however, already rolled out FTTH to a greenfield site in Ebbsfleet, Kent, covering some 10,000 homes.
As well as rolling out FTTH, where fibre optic cable is laid all the way to a user's premises, BT is deploying fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC), where cabling only reaches to the street cabinet.
While the latter is a cheaper option, the broadband speeds a user experiences are significantly lower - FTTH's downlink is 100Mpbs, compared to FTTC's 40Mpbs.
BT to date has announced two lots of exchanges that will be fibre-enabled - announcing in March the first 29 exchanges that will get fibre first, followed by a second batch of 69 in July.
The London suburb of Muswell Hill is the first area to have its fibre connectivity go live, with BT recently opening a shop to promote the technology in the area and demo its potential applications.
Download speeds of fibre and copper compared at BT's Muswell Hill shop
(Photo credit: Natasha Lomas/silicon.com)
BT's fibre plans are part of a planned £1.5bn rollout which the telco says should cover 40 per cent of the country by 2012.
Comments
There is 1 comment. Join the discussion
1. GALLEYSLAVE
Hope its my turn soon but I won't hold my breath!!!!!