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Broadband fibre for all by 2015, UK Government promises
06 Dec 2010 | 10.44 Europe/London
The British Government is promising ‘super fast’ broadband for all by the end of the current parliament in 2015.
Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has reiterated the Government’s pledge to put £830m of public money, via the BBC’s licence fee, in to the project to put a ‘digital hub’ in every community from which each household will receive speeds of 24Mbp/s or greater.
Hunt estimates the project could create up to 600,000 jobs and boost the UK’s economy, making the country able to compete with economies where connections are currently far superior to Britain’s.
BT upgrade boost?
While there have been no announcements on who will roll out the required infrastructure, BT has gone on record stating that it would match the public funds with its own money if given the contract to provide each community with a fibre-connected digital hub – one can assume this will effectively pay for rolling out its BT Infinity product to exchanges not currently on its upgrade roadmap.
This would pave the way for Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) which will then uses copper wires between an exchanges and local homes. This should offer an estimated top speed of up to 40Mbp/s, in keeping with BT Infinity’s current product. The more expensive alternative of Fibre to the Home (FTTH) would take fibre all the way to a house, and could be considered for possible later upgrade.
At present, BT's plans will roll out fibre to two in three households but only a quarter of those connected will have a faster FTTH service.
BT may not have it all its own way. Virgin Media has shown initial interest in bidding for the public funds to roll out its own cable internet network.
At the same time, many smaller companies, who welcome the move to widen fibre’s penetration in to the difficult to reach ‘final third’, are calling on the Government to bring in fairer taxation rules on fibre which they claim currently given an unfair advantage to the giants of BT and Virgin Media.
Culture Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, has reiterated the Government’s pledge to put £830m of public money, via the BBC’s licence fee, in to the project to put a ‘digital hub’ in every community from which each household will receive speeds of 24Mbp/s or greater.
Hunt estimates the project could create up to 600,000 jobs and boost the UK’s economy, making the country able to compete with economies where connections are currently far superior to Britain’s.
BT upgrade boost?
While there have been no announcements on who will roll out the required infrastructure, BT has gone on record stating that it would match the public funds with its own money if given the contract to provide each community with a fibre-connected digital hub – one can assume this will effectively pay for rolling out its BT Infinity product to exchanges not currently on its upgrade roadmap.
This would pave the way for Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) which will then uses copper wires between an exchanges and local homes. This should offer an estimated top speed of up to 40Mbp/s, in keeping with BT Infinity’s current product. The more expensive alternative of Fibre to the Home (FTTH) would take fibre all the way to a house, and could be considered for possible later upgrade.
At present, BT's plans will roll out fibre to two in three households but only a quarter of those connected will have a faster FTTH service.
BT may not have it all its own way. Virgin Media has shown initial interest in bidding for the public funds to roll out its own cable internet network.
At the same time, many smaller companies, who welcome the move to widen fibre’s penetration in to the difficult to reach ‘final third’, are calling on the Government to bring in fairer taxation rules on fibre which they claim currently given an unfair advantage to the giants of BT and Virgin Media.