Sep 2 2010
UK telecom giant, BT, has announced that it has signed up the 15 millionth user to its high-speed broadband network. This marks yet another milestone for the company’s plan to create Broadband Britain. Over the next 18 months, BT has planned to deploy high-speed fibre-optic network; however, one-in-three homes will not be to access the broadband service.
High speed broadband fibre optics
Three-quarters of UK businesses and households now have access to the broadband network. Additionally, Virgin Media serves about 4.2 million subscribers through its cable network. The retail branch of BT has over 5 million broadband subscribers.
The UK market is more receptive to the broadband network compared to the U.S. and Germany markets. However, Britain falls short with other countries with respect to the broadband speeds. Customers using BT’s copper-based network experience lower speeds that depend mainly on the distance they stay from their network exchange.
The Strategy Director of BT, Olivia Garfield stated that BT is currently funding £2.5bn to deploy the fibre-optic broadband network to two-thirds of Britain, and this investment will allow the UK to increase its broadband speeds tremendously.