BT has revealed plans to offer new ultra-fast “on demand” broadband to businesses and homes next year, and will also double the speed of its Infinity service earlier than expected.
BT says that two thirds of Infinity customers will have speeds of up to 80Mbps by the end of the 2014, up from the current 40Mbps limit. But its on demand service will offer comparatively insane speeds of up to 300Mbps by extending the company’s fibre optic network right up to your door. Currently the fiber optic network goes to junction boxes in the street, which are then connected to homes and businesses via copper wire. This acts as a bottle neck, and means drops in speed.
The proposed new service is called “fibre to the premises” or FTTP, and has been successfully trialled in Cornwall. When FTTP becomes available (the aim is spring 2013, dependant on more trials) customers will have to request a fibre optic connection to their home or business, which suggests that this 300Mbps system could end up being fairly pricey. Well, what did you expect?
BT was one of a few companies that came out of Ofcom’s recent broadband speed report looking relatively good. Ofcom found that the average download speed of BT Infinity’s 40Mbps service was between 35.4 and 36.7Mbps. BT’s 20Mbps service didn’t fare so well (7.8 to 9.7Mbps) and Sky, TalkTalk, Plusnet, Karoo and Orange’s figures for services advertised at similar speeds also made disappointing reading.
Of course, even BT’s speeds look feeble compared to the 1Gbps connections now available in South Korea. Maybe we should all move to Seoul.
(Via Digital Spy)
