SuffolkOnline.net

A further 41 market towns have been announced today to receive access to BT's next-generation fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband service which will deliver broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps from Spring 2012. This will enable a further 300,000 homes and businesses to get online using this new faster technology from BT.

Topography of market towns means that not everyone in an area will get access to the new technology due to economic or technical reasons, but Openreach is keen to engage with local council to see if an agreement can be made to avoid exclusions.

"We want to extend the fibre footprint and the benefits the technology brings to more rural areas. So we're constantly evolving our deployment model to make sure we can bring the benefits of the technology to the maximum number of people within the scope of our commercial deployment. The inclusion of 41 market towns in our roll-out plan firmly demonstrates our commitment to finding solutions for local communities. However, in many cases, this will require a collective effort. An infrastructure project on this scale – arguably as important to the future of the UK as the road or rail networks - can only be done in partnership. We're keen to talk to public and private sector organisations about how this can be achieved.

Many factors are taken into account when making decisions about where to focus our investment, and we're working on ways to give people more of an opportunity to demonstrate where demand for next generation fibre broadband is the greatest."

The list of exchanges which will be enabled under this expanded roll out is as below. The 41 today join the 785 previously announced pushing the total to receive faster broadband to 826. This equates to around 8 million premises, or around half of BT's planned fibre-rollout plan. The company hope to reaching 66% of the country through its £2.5 billion investment.

Article Courtesy of Think Broadband