BT's Openreach extending G.fast to another million premises

BT’s Openreach division announced an extension to its ultrafast broadband rollout on Monday, with a plan to extend G.fast service to more than a million homes and businesses in a further 81 locations.

It said London, Leicester, Manchester, Worthing, Stoke, Birmingham, and Blackpool were among the places which would make up the next phase of the telecoms infrastructure operator’s build programme over the next nine months, adding to the more than 250 locations where the technology had already been deployed.

The company said the multi million pound investment would make faster, more reliable broadband services available to local residents and businesses.

The new Gfast technology used existing copper telephone infrastructure, changing the way broadband signals were transmitted from existing street cabinets to boost speeds up to 330Mbps - seven times today’s UK average - without the need to dig up roads and install new cabling.

Openreach said the increased bandwidth was enough for people to support simultaneous 4K video streams in every room of their house, or to download a film just before leaving home and have it ready to watch on their phone or tablet “almost immediately”.

Gfast was also described as more reliable than existing technology, using software that could detect and manage service-affecting issues as soon as they occur.

The new technology would also provide enough additional capacity to support future data-hungry services and applications, Openreach claimed, such as virtual reality gaming and smart homes, where a network of online sensors could coordinate and control home appliances – from thermostats, door bells and security cameras to door locks, lawn sprinklers, window blinds and washing machines.

“Currently, the UK is a world leader in digital infrastructure and services, but as the digital revolution rushes forwards and the demand for data continues to grow, we need to sure we stay ahead of the curve,” said Openreach managing director for strategic infrastructure development Kim Mears.

“That’s why we’re investing in faster, more reliable network infrastructure to facilitate all the activities we want to do now, and also those we haven’t even dreamt of doing in 10 years’ time.”

Openreach explained that ultrafast broadband speeds could be delivered using both G.fast and fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) technology, with its latest announcement complementing a wider investment programme in future-proofed FTTP networks, which was on track to reach three million homes and businesses by the end of 2020.

It said it had already made ultrafast broadband, using a combination of those technologies, available to more than 1.9 million premises across the UK, with ambitions to go further.

The business said it planned to reach a total of 5.7 million properties using G.fast, and wanted to extend its FTTP rollout to 10 million premises by the mid-2020s if the conditions were right to invest.

It said it was also continuing to deliver FTTP to rural areas, in partnership with the Government, to ensure some of the hardest to reach communities in the UK had access to future-proofed fibre networks.