BT has stepped up its super-fast broadband deals arms race with Virgin Media by promising speeds of up to 300Mbps for some customers by the spring of next year.
The company will be using new fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology, which involved installing fibre-optic cable directly into the home, to offer the new speeds in 2012.
BT will use the same technology to begin offering 110Mbps FTTP broadband by early October this year in six towns around the UK.
Ashford, Bradwell Abbey, Highams Park, Chester South, St Austell and York will be the first to be able to sign up for the package. That's only a potential base of 60,000 people.
Spearheading the revolution
The 110Mbps speeds gives BT Broadband an edge in its battle with Virgin Media to spearhead the super-fast revolution in the United Kingdom.
Virgin currently offers 100Mbps as its top speed, while BT just doubled its best offering from 40Mbps to 80Mbps for existing customers.
Currently BT uses 'fibre to the cabinet' technology for its super-fast connections, which involves having fibre-optic cable at street level, with copper wires carrying the connection to the house.
With the new FTTP connections, those all important fibre-optics will make it all the way to your telephone socket.
Superfast by 2015
BT says it will have the tech in 18m homes by 2015, meeting the governments targets.
"These are significant announcements and good news for the UK," said Communications Minister Ed Vaizey said in a statement.
"High-speed broadband is essential for economic growth, which is why we want the UK to have the best superfast broadband in Europe by 2015.
The company is convinced that the FTTP tech can eventually reach download speeds of up to 1Gbps, at which point we'll all do a very excited dance.
Via: Guardian
