Broadband: it's never as fast as you want it to be, is it? But there's good news for Brits living in areas where BT's Infinity broadband service is available -- even faster broadband is coming next year if you demand a speed boost.
The BT Infinity service currently offers broadband speeds of up to 40Mbps, because fibre is only laid to the street cabinet. From there your data is stuck in the slow lane by being forced to crawl along on ageing copper lines.
Getting the fastest broadband speeds in Blighty means having fibre-optic line laid right into your living room, at least until they work out a way to plug it straight into your brain. But for some reason, BT has been a tad reluctant to dig up the front gardens and driveways of everyone in the UK (hint: it's expensive) -- with only a few lucky areas getting the full-fibre treatment.
Starting in spring 2013, however, BT will offer up to 330Mbps broadband on demand -- digging up your driveway if you ask very nicely, provided you live in a BT Infinity area. If you live atop a Scottish mountain you're probably out of luck, but BT reckons it will have pushed fibre close to two-thirds of houses in the UK by the end of 2014.
With a commercial launch some way off, BT hasn't decided whether digging up your front lawn will be included in a more expensive monthly contract or an added extra. It's fair to say it won't be free though.
330Mbps will also be offered by ISPs who use BT's broadband network -- so if your ISP is not BT you'll need to check whether they're signed up to the ultra-fast broadband plan. And if not, find a new ISP, stat.
BT has just finished a trial of this ultra-beefy broadband in St Agnes, Cornwall -- famed for its glorious, surf-tastic beaches, and now for gloriously surf-tastic Internet. More trials are planned this summer, presumably so BT can be sure it has enough spades to go around.
And there's more good news: speedier broadband is also coming to BT Infinity areas this spring as BT rolls out some fancy new tech capable of doubling broadband speeds. Download speeds will rise to a maximum of 80Mbps, and upload speeds will get beefed up to up to 20Mbps.
Are you itching to get your hands on 330Mbps? And if so, what will you be doing with such almighty speeds? Let us know in the comments below or shout all about it on our Facebook wall.
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Comments 8
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anonymous 3 February, 2012 12:45
Would be nice if BT concentrated on making sure those of us that are currently not in an Infinity area (which there are a LOT of), could actually get a faster service than 7mbps before upgrading the Infinity areas.
Major FAIL.
I guess Virgin Media will receive my custom for another couple of years at least then.
anonymous 3 February, 2012 13:00
7mbps I dream of 7mbps try 500k and I don't live on a mountain, just three miles from nearest exchange
mark2410 3 February, 2012 13:07
would love but since a BT director doesnt live nearby i dont expect to actually get this in my lifetime
anonymous 3 February, 2012 14:48
Yeah if you can't even work out how to post properly then faster bandwidth would obviously be wasted on you anyway
anonymous 3 February, 2012 15:43
I live in Saudi Arabia and telecom companies have been digging every where to install their fiber (FTTH) and started offering speeds of upto 200 Mbps. I thought the UK was ahead of these 3rd world countries!
anonymous 3 February, 2012 20:42
The Saudis are awash in oil money. That's why they can install FTTH everywhere.
anonymous 4 February, 2012 12:46
Thats all well and good when you live in the city, but im only a couple of miles from the city of lincoln and the best i can get is 1.5Mb, no fibre solutions either so unless i want to pay thousands to set up a sat service then im stuck with it. I'm sick of all this talk about the national average being very high and Ofcom saying everything is rosy, when it clearly isn't!
anonymous 6 February, 2012 19:44
I would really like to have even 7mbp. I can get 0.5 to a speedy 1.5 mbp.