69 more towns to receive superfast fibre broadband

Optical fibre is coming to more towns

BT has announced 69 more locations that will have superfast fibre-based broadband services available by summer 2010.

Towns across the country will see fibre to the cabinet installed, with a minority also having fibre to the premises.

BT said that a million homes will have access to high-speed broadband by March next year, with a further half a million live by summer. The telecoms giant is spending £1.5bn on the rollout, which aims to have 10 million homes connected by 2012 – some 40 per cent of the UK.

The first sites to have access to fibre broadband from BT went live earlier this week. The pilots of the technology in Muswell Hill, London and Whitchurch, South Wales involve 16 ISPs providing services to customers.

“Fibre is the future and so we’re speeding up the pace of our plans,” said Steve Robertson, chief executive of Openreach, BT’s local network arm which is responsible for the rollout.

“We had aimed to get fibre to half a million homes by next March but we’re now being far more ambitious. We have received a tremendous response to date and so we’re keen to get on with the job.”

Fibre-based broadband services are already available across much of the country through Virgin Media's cable network, which is aiming to reach 12.5 million homes later this year.

“People in the UK do not have to wait for BT," said a Virgin Media spokesman.

"Virgin Media already offers the fastest broadband in the country with its ultrafast 50Mbit/s service. By the end of this summer we will have completed our next generation roll out to 12.5 million homes and we’re already piloting 200Mbit/s. We’ve been saying for years that fibre-optic broadband is the future.”

The full list of locations that will be part of the next round of BT's fibre services is:

East of England:

• Berkhamsted
• Billericay
• Brentwood
• Elstree
• Hainault
• Hoddesdon
• Lea Valley
• Loughton
• Stanford-Le-Hope
• Waltham Cross
• Woodford

East Midlands:

• Glossop
• Hinckley

London:

• Barking
• Barnet
• Eltham
• Greenwich
• Hornchurch
• Ingrebourne
• New Southgate
• Ponders End
• Sidcup
• Slade Green
• Stamford Hill

North East:

• Chester-Le-Street
• Durham
• East Herrington
• Hetton-Le-Hole

North West:

• Altrincham
• Ashton-Under-Lyne
• Cheetham
• Chorlton
• Denton
• Hyde
• Manchester East
• Moss Side
• Prestwich
• Stalybridge
• Swinton, Greater Manchester
• Urmston
• Walkden
• Wilmslow

Northern Ireland:

• Lisburn

Scotland:

• Edinburgh Corstorphine
• Edinburgh Craiglockhart
• Glasgow Bridgeton
• Glasgow Giffnock

South East:

• Basingstoke
• Dartford

South West:

• Bristol North
• Bristol West
• Downend

Wales:

• Barry
• Caerphilly
• Penarth

West Midlands:

• Birmingham, Northern
• Fallings Park
• Great Barr
• Leamore
• Nuneaton
• Tettenhall
• Wednesbury
• Walsall

Yorkshire:

• Armley
• Castleford
• Headingley
• Low Moor
• Pontefract
• Shipley