BT increases Infinity by one

Six winners announced for super-fast broadband race

BT's 'Race to Infinity' competition has finished, with six communities to be among the first to receive new fibre broadband services.

The telecommuncations giant had originally planned to reward the top five communities in terms of numbers of votes, but increased that to six due to the popularity of the contest.

Over 360,000 votes were cast in the competition, which ended on December 31 2010.

The winners are:

• Baschurch, Shropshire
• Blewbury, Oxfordshire
• Caxton, Cambridgeshire
• Innerleithen, Scottish Borders
• Madingley, Cambridgeshire
• Whitchurch, Hampshire

These exchange areas will be added to BT's deployment and enabled by early 2012.

Of those communities outside the top six, Gavin Patterson, CEO of BT Retail, said: "Their efforts haven't been in vain because their votes will help influence our plans in the future."

John Buckley, campaigner for Whitchurch in Hampshire, said: "[The win] will make the town a better place for home working and as a business location."

BT claims that its Infinity fibre-optic broadband is capable of offering download speeds of up to 40Mbit/s and upload speeds of up to 10Mbit/s.