[UK] BT to roll-out faster broadband

bealtine

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8081226.stm

BT to roll-out faster broadband


BT Broadband is boosting the speeds of millions of its customers to up to 20 megabits per second at no extra cost.

The rollout is part of the firm's planned upgrade of lines to so-called ADSL2+ technology.

The firm said the rollout would start with 40% of the UK this summer and reach 55% of customers by March 2010.

Existing customers will have to sign a new 12-month contract to get the boost, while throttling of video streams in peak hours for some customers remains.

Earlier this week BT was criticised when it was revealed it cut the speed of customers on its cheapest broadband package to below 1Mbps in peak hours when using services like the iPlayer and YouTube.

That so-called traffic management will remain in place with the new speeds.

Download caps for the cheapest two packages, of 10 gigabytes and 20 gigabytes, will also continue, the firm said.

In a statement, Gavin Patterson, chief executive officer, BT Retail, said: "Unlike other providers, BT is upgrading customers to 20Mb/s for free. High-speed broadband provides a faster and more reliable service that will transform the way we live, work, learn and play."

BT said it was starting trials of its fibre optic 40Mbps service in Whitchurch, South Wales and Muswell Hill, London this summer, with the aim of offering these speeds to 40% of the country in the future.

The speed boost to 20Mbps is less than the firm's originally stated aims of offering up to 24Mbps.

On its website, BT says in tests "we've found that only a tiny number of customers can actually get 24Mb".

bealtine

BT launches ADSL2+ services Wednesday 3 June 2009


UK operator BT announced an expansion of its ADSL2+ services. The ISP has already trialed the service, which offers downloads of up to 20 Mbps, with over 60,000 customers. It now plans to offer the service from an initial 549 telephone exchanges from this summer, serving more than 10 million or 40 percent of the UK's homes and businesses. BT will extend the faster service coverage to 55 percent by March 2010 subject to customer demand. In addition to boosting download speeds, upload speeds will increase to up to 1Mbps. Currently BT's top download speed is 8 Mbps. These customers will receive the upgrade to 20 Mbps at no extra cost. BT also announced the introduction of the BT Broadband Accelerator, a device that helps eliminate electrical interference from phone-extension wiring and can improve broadband speeds and reliability. BT will be giving away the devices free to consumers and businesses that are likely to benefit. Looking to the next generation of broadband services, BT Retail will trial 40 Mbps services this summer in Whitchurch, South Wales and Muswell Hill.

cgarvey

Haven't we had that here for quite a while now?

bk

cgarvey wrote: »

Haven't we had that here for quite a while now?

Not really.

The LLU operators here like Smart, Magnet and BT Ireland use ADSL2+, just like the LLU operators (Sky, Carphone Warehouses, etc.) have been doing for a long time in the UK.

Eircom recently launched ADSL2+ in some exchanges, but only sell it as an expensive business products. The difference is BT in the UK are introducing ADSL2+ as a consumer product and giving upto 20mb/s to consumer for about the same Eircom charge for 1 to 2mb/s products!!

bealtine

cgarvey wrote: »

Haven't we had that here for quite a while now?

Sort of...

The big difference is the upload speeds are upped to 1Mbps which is a nice little increase from the usual slow upload speeds generally offered here.

cgarvey

1Mb upload speed here too, I thought.

Agreed, on the difference in price focus alright, BK .. it's clearly not a regular residential consumer offering here; yet anyway