Milton Keynes and in particular the Bradwell Abbey area looks set to benefit from the continuing roll-out of FTTP and FTTC Openreach products. BT has announced that expansion plans will mean 95% of homes and businesses in the Bradwell Abbey exchange area will be able to access the wholesale fibre products from Openreach.
The area has been a test bed for the fibre products, and as such has helped Openreach understand and train staff in provisioning the new products. The expansion will add around 20,000 properties to the superfast broadband coverage figures, some 9,600 will have full fibre (FTTP) which should be able to offer download speeds of 300 Mbps in 2012, and a further 10,700 will be served by the partial fibre (FTTC) product. FTTC currently offers up to 40 Mbps, but will in the New Year offer up to 80 Mbps as the maximum speed, the partial fibre products connection speed is dependent on the distance between the property and the green cabinet in the street.
"This latest major investment is a tremendous boost for Milton Keynes. Super-fast broadband will be welcomed by families throughout these areas because it will help improve their quality of life and leisure and open new doors through online learning and fast access to information and services. And it’s also going to provide a huge fillip for businesses and these areas’ economy. At a stroke, small and medium sized firms will have access to big business speeds at much lower costs allowing them to find new markets, boost their competitiveness and create new jobs.
Faster upstream speeds are a boon for flexible and remote working, slashing office overheads and improving employees’ work-life balance. Large graphic and video files can be sent immediately online instead of being physically delivered to customers on hard disk. And high quality voice and video calls will enable businesses to save time travelling to clients without losing direct customer contact."John Weaver, BT South East regional director
staff member)
5 months ago
Surely this is breaking UK & EU competition law?
Are we seriously supoosed to belive that it is unviable to fully roll out FTTC in cities on a commercial basis?