BT Openreach has announced that it will soon be testing the early examples of its next generation of fibre optic connections.

The fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) broadband system will begin by offering speeds up to 40Mbps and will be available to approximately 30,000 premises to start with, reports ISP Review.

At first it will be available in two regions, Muswell Hill in London and Whitchurch in South Glamorgan.

David Campbell, Openreach's director of next generation access, commented: "These two sites were chosen from a shortlist and we expect to announce detailed plans for the initial market deployment of the Openreach product in early 2010, again following consultation with all interested parties."

The move is one of the early stages of BT's £1.5 billion investments, which it is hoped will bring speeds of up to 100Mbps to homes throughout the UK.

If all goes to plan, around ten million homes could have access to the super-fast next generation of broadband.

BT has already announced that it will be running trials of the fibre to the premises (FTTP) product in Suffolk early in 2009.

This system will be even faster than FTTC but it is likely to be used more for new-build homes as it requires fibre optic connections to be broad directly to each individual home.

FTTC is likely to achieve speeds between 10Mbps whereas FTTP could end up offering subscribers speeds of up to 100Mbps.

However, FTTP has prompted concerns that users will no longer have the options available to broadband users at the moment.

This could mean that internet service providers such as BT would be able to charge larger fees for faster connections but consumers may not have the same level of choice that they usually have with regard to their access to the internet.


Tuesday, 14th October 2008

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