BT could announce a significant upturn in its broadband network this week. The UK’s largest Internet Service Provider (ISP) is expected to come up with a major upgrade plan to add more homes to its Fiber-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.
Unlike aging and very slow copper cables, FTTP brings fiber directly into living rooms, allowing companies like BT to deliver downloads to homes at around 1 Gbps – that’s more than 15 times the current UK average.
For a quick comparison, it takes less than 40 seconds to download a Full HD blockbuster movie at 1 Gbps – compared to more than 10 minutes on a standard UK line.
BT’s Openreach network is key to this plan. By the middle to the end of 20202, around 20 million households are expected to be connected at super-fast speeds.
Things are set to expand even further, according to a report by the Telegraph, and more rural areas are expected to be next on Openreach’s plan to speed up the UK. In fact, it is believed that around 27 areas are dedicated to broadband boost.
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Openreach has already committed to providing full fiber for an additional 3.2 million properties (10%) in rural areas. And the government plans to fund the remaining 20% of the land with public funds to ensure no one is left behind. This now seems to be expanding further.
BT Group CEO Philip Jansen could announce all the news tomorrow, May 13th, including areas where the speed boost is to take place.
Connecting more households with full fiber is an important task as Openreach currently only supplies around 4.5 million properties with this technology, and that’s just not enough.
As we all continue to work from home and use the internet to stay entertained, faster speeds will become more important than ever to keep us all connected.
The news that things could get faster won’t come soon enough for millions of homeowners.
While the UK manages to outperform 174 other countries worldwide, it falls far behind 46 other nations in the speed league, including 21 in Western Europe. This makes the UK one of the slowest in Europe when it comes to average broadband speeds. To make matters worse, the UK has lost ground since the 2019 measurements.
