February 3, 2012

BT Aims For 90% FTTP-On-Demand Coverage

BT has concluded its trials of “FTTP on demand” service in St Agnes, Cornwall, where it was testing the provision of additional fiber to be run on demand to a home or business in a Fiber to the Cabinet (FTTC)-enabled area. During the test, customers got ultra-fast Fiber to the Premise (FTTP) broadband.

Previously, FTTP speeds weren’t possible in FTTC-enabled areas but BT has developed a solution that takes advantage of the fiber it has already deployed between the exchange and the street cabinet.

“The technological development has the potential to transform the U.K. broadband landscape. This is because FTTP – which will soon offer end users speeds of up to 300 Mbps – could be made available anywhere in BT’s fiber footprint where a customer requires it,” the operator notes. “BT will conduct further trials of FTTP on demand this summer with a view to making the service commercially available to all communications providers by Spring 2013." 



BT also said it will introduce a faster variant of FTTC broadband this spring that will deliver speeds approximately double those it offers today. As such, downstream speed could reach 80 Mbps, and upstream speeds could ramp o to 20 Mbps. 


More than seven million premises can now access fiber broadband over BT’s network, and the operator predict this number will grow to 10 million sometime this year; by 2014, some two-thirds of the country’s premises could be served. However, BT is aiming at covering more than 90 percent of the U.K.’s premises and is bidding for Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds to make that happen.