BT's local access arm Openreach today announced a new optical fibre trial, which is scheduled to begin in January 2010.

The fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) system will be trialled at two sites – Bradwell Abbey in Milton Keynes and Highams Park in London, both brownfield sites – which Openreach said will see download bandwidths of "up to 100Mbit/s delivered to up to 20,000 homes and businesses in each area by March 2010".

The trial is something of a turnaround for BT, which has not showed much enthusiasm for fibre in the past and, more recently, has confined trials to fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) in Ebbsfleet.

FTTC stops short of premises and takes fibre just to the street cabinets, which connect individual subscriber phone lines to the local telephone exchange.

"What this announcement really says is that BT believes there is a business case in fibre to the premises (FTTP)," said Richard Thurston, analyst at Analysys Mason. "It will only be in select areas – really dense urban geographies – but we expect FTTP will now make up as much as one-quarter of BT's planned rollout.

"It's worth remembering that BT is only putting its feet in the water. It doesn't yet fully understand the costs involved, and it certainly doesn't know what the demand will be," added Thurston. "So a lot will change between now and when the first phase of deployment happens next year."

David Campbell, managing director of Openreach next-generation access, said the trial is crucial for BT's plans to deploy FTTP alongside FTTC.

Openreach, it appears, has learned a lot about its greenfield fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) rollout in Ebbsfleet and now believes that brownfield sites have huge potential.

"We’ve worked closely with communications providers and regional development authorities in selecting these sites for the FTTP brownfield trial, and I’d like to encourage as many communications providers as possible to get involved in the trial,” said Campbell.

The ensuing infrastructure will be available wholesale to other ISPs and comms providers.

"Along with the FTTC rollout, this puts BT back on the high-speed agenda," said Thurston. "Virgin Media is competing for customers that demand high speeds, but BT has extra credibility in the business space that will make it a strong competitor with FTTP.

"All this is good news for businesses - those struggling with costly leased lines or who experience poor DSL service. Many businesses have fibre already, but this will give them a cheaper alternative, possibly with lower SLAs," he added.

Meanwhile, figures from the FTTH Council Europe show that the number of FTTH/P subscribers grew by 15 per cent in the first six months of 2009, adding 5.5 million new subscribers worldwide.

But despite BT's efforts, the UK does not appear in the Council's top 20 global ranking of countries rolling out optical fibre network infrastructures. South Korea, Japan and Taiwan are the top three, and Sweden, fourth, is the highest European country in the rankings.

"Big countries like France, UK and Germany are still missing and two million subscribers in Europe is still a small number compared to six million in North America, and more than 30 million in Asia-Pacific," said Karel Helsen, president of the FTTH Council Europe.

The financial expense of rolling out next-generation optical fibre network infrastructure has led the UK government to introduce the idea of a 50p tax on all phone lines. Minister for Digital Britain and financial secretary to the Treasury Stephen Timms has confirmed that legislation to enact the tax will be put before parliament this side of the general election.