BT is spending more than £3 billion on deploying fibre broadband and its open access fibre network already passes more than 18 million homes and businesses. That footprint is set to grow rapidly as various rural fibre programmes are delivered.
UK fibre broadband availability currently stands at 73 per cent, when all networks are taken into account. The current Broadband Delivery UK programme, which receives financial support from both central and local government, is set to extend that coverage to around 90 per cent by late 2015 or early 2016. The programme has made strong early progress with hundreds of thousands of premises passed with fibre to date.
Mike Galvin, MD Network Investment at Openreach said: “Our fibre programme is going extremely well with our engineers connecting homes and businesses across the UK. Some city areas have proved challenging in the past but we are returning to those and will pass hundreds of thousands of additional premises with fibre.
“We are reaching vast swathes of rural Britain with our public sector partners but we will upgrade these city areas under our own steam. Businesses in cities already have access to ultra-fast speeds but fibre will give them greater choice.
“The UK is already ahead of its main European rivals when it comes to fibre, and is set to race ahead thanks to the BDUK plans that are already in progress across the country.”
BT’s fibre network is open to all communications providers on an equivalent basis, ensuring businesses and consumers benefit from intense competition, a wide choice of supplier and low prices.
The benefits are also considerable for businesses, which can do much more in far less time. Firms can speed up file and data transfers, collaborate with colleagues and customers on conference or video calls or swap their hardware and expensive software licenses for files, processing power and software from cloud computing. Staff can work as effectively from home as they would in the office.