BT Shows First Fiber-Optic Broadband Rollout Plans

MJackson writes "BT has revealed new details about the roll-out of its £1.5bn programme to deploy super fast fibre optic broadband to as many as 10 million UK homes (40%) by 2012. Scotland will become one of the first places to benefit from next-generation broadband services, with more than 34,000 homes and businesses in Edinburgh and Glasgow receiving speeds of up to 40Mbps and potentially 60Mbps from early next year (2010). Overall, BT Openreach, which is responsible for ensuring that all rival operators have equality of access to BT's local network, aims to deploy Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) based next generation broadband services next summer (2010) to 500,000 homes and businesses in the UK."

Comments

Great!

[microbee]

So we'll have much faster BitTorrent downloads? Oh wait..

Anonymous Coward

[Anonymous Coward]

Bah... Been there, done that...
Optical broadband is already rolled out in Norway, the "entry level" line is 10/10mb (yes, symetric), very stable and high quality with separate extra bandwith for Ip TV.

Now, if the rest of the world follows, internet content will only get heavier and the demand for even more bandwith will grow :-(

Guess we'll have to double the bandwith every 18 month in the future?

Re:Anonymous Coward

[starsky51]

You're right. Progress is a pain in the arse!

What do we need the bandwidth for?

[BestNicksRTaken]

If P2P is illegal - and frankly any internet traffic seems to be illegal according to the Orwellian UK government at the moment, what are we going to use 60Mbps for - checking Email?

Mind you, 60Mbps is really going to improve the performance of the botnets, so spam levels will go up.

Re:What do we need the bandwidth for?

[RegularFry]

iPlayer and whatever content providers BT wants to get into bed with will eat this up.

Re:What do we need the bandwidth for?

[TheRaven64]

iPlayer streams are around 1Mb/s. Given the availability of fast enough consumer links, I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC started streaming the shows with the same format they broadcast them, which can eat up 20Mb/s easily. Two people in the house watching different streams? That's 40Mb/s. Download a big file in the background and you've got your 60Mb/s right there.

I doubt many people will be using 60Mb/s all of the time, but then I don't use all of the 10Mb/s I get now all of the time either (and if I did, my ISP couldn't afford to give me the service at the rate that they do).

A big step forward

[renesch]

now they will be able to install CCTVs even in private homes

Re:A big step forward

[MichaelSmith]

now they will be able to install CCTVs even in private homes

That'l show those terrorists.

Not too bad... how about 1,000 MBps?

[wvmarle]

Available NOW, not in a few years?

Hong Kong has it. 30 Mbit (down, 10 Mbit up) for cheap (about USD 33 per month) and up to 1,000 Mbit for those with more money to waste (about USD 280 per month). This is for residential use, by the way. Available in residential buildings.

Admittedly not available everywhere (like for me: I only can get traditional ADSL but then I'm living in a village so no surprise there), still this is nothing new. Good for the UK that they are catching up with their former colony.

Re:Not too bad... how about 1,000 MBps?

[TheThiefMaster]

Actually, despite their advertising, all Virgin have deployed is a fiber backbone, not "fiber broadband", which would include fibre to the home. For the last mile their 50Mb service goes over the same cables they've used all along.

Not that it matters much when you get 50Mbps downstream and nearly 2Mbps upstream.

Scotland is first because...

[Dan B.]

...both Edinburgh and Glasgow have relatively few BT customers at present. The residents in each city looking for broadband are pretty much all subscribers to the two major cable companies that provide phone services, pay TV and unlimited 1~10MB (shared bandwidth) cable internet for a fairly low fee. The cities are also fairly dense, but not too populated, thus making them good public pilot sites. There are also two fantastic Universities right in the heart of the cities that probably influence a lot of local council decisions.