BT adds 178 exchanges to fibre roll-out

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UK incumbent telco BT has added a further 178 exchanges across the country to its fibre deployment programme. These new exchanges cover more than 1.8mn homes and businesses, and the majority of them will be enabled in 2012.

Once these and previously announced exchanges have been upgraded, BT Openreach (the wholesale arm of BT) will have completed around 80 per cent of its commercial fibre footprint. This commercial footprint will cover two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.

So far, more than six million homes and businesses already have access to fibre-based broadband, currently delivering speeds of up to 40 Mbps, with these speeds to be upgraded to roughly double those of current levels next year.

BT Openreach is also launching broadband services in certain areas of the country which are based on Fibre-to-the-Home (FTTH) technology, and which will deliver speeds of up to 300 Mbps in spring of next year.