BT says it would match government funding for fast broadband

Telecoms giant says the money would enable it to extend fibre to up to 90 per cent of UK premises

BT has said that if it wins the backing of public money to extend broadband to rural areas, it will match this funding with its own cash.

If it were to receive the £830m promised by the government during the Comprehensive Spending Review, the combined funds – about £1.7bn – will enable fibre rollout to up to 90 per cent of UK premises, BT said.

However, other providers will bid to secure this additional funding.

"BT's range of measures would, on top of the £830m the government is investing, go a huge way to delivering our ambition for the UK to have the best broadband system in Europe by 2015," said Jeremy Hunt, Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport.

"BT has said it will contribute further funding to supplement any of the public money the company may win when we hold tenders for rolling our rural broadband," he added.

In other news, BT has announced it plans to trial 1Gbit/s fibre broadband speeds in Kesgrave, Suffolk – 10 times faster than BT's current fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) product.

The purpose of the trial is to demonstrate maximum speed capabilities, and is likely to see 1Gbit/s downstream speeds, and 400Mbit/s upstream.

"While consumers don't require gigabit speeds every day, it's important that we test the maximum speed capabilities of our fibre broadband product to ensure that it is fully future proofed," said Olivia Garfield, BT's director of strategy.