BT has announced a £500m plan to roll out fibre optics to 10 million homes by 2012.

The investment forms part of BT's wider strategy to deliver next-generation broadband services nationwide.

The fibre optics should provide customers with speeds of up to 100Mbps, possibly reaching 1Gbps in the future.

BT will be pumping around £1.5bn into the overall programme, about two thirds of which is part of its existing expenditure plans for fibre deployment.

The company has already deployed more than 10 million kilometres of fibre in the network, most of which resides between local exchanges and central hubs and relies on copper cabling for the final line to each customer.

"Broadband has boosted the UK economy and is now an essential part of our customers' lives," said BT chief executive Ian Livingston.

"We now want to make a step-change in broadband provision which will offer faster speeds than ever before. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in Britain's broadband story."

BT will work closely with telecoms watchdog Ofcom to ensure the smooth progress of the project.

Ofcom has welcomed BT's plans and will publish further detailed proposals for the regulatory framework for Next Generation Access networks in September.

"This is a clear sign that the UK market is moving in the right direction with a growing number of plans to deliver super-fast broadband services to consumers," said Ed Richards, chief executive of Ofcom.

"These new networks will be a critical part of the UK's infrastructure and will change our experience of communications."