In a penny pinching move that pays only lip service to the need to upgrade the present infrastructure BT are forging ahead.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7667761.stmResidents of Muswell Hill, in London, and Whitchurch, in South Glamorgan, are to be the first to try next generation broadband in the UK.
Exchanges in both areas are to become pilot sites where the fibre-based broadband will be tested.
Once they are upgraded, home users should be able to go online at speeds over 40 megabits per second (Mbps).
The operational pilots will run fibre-optic cables to the street cabinets that connect homes and businesses to telephone exchanges.
In a separate trial BT is also running fibre to thousands of new homes being built at a large scale development under construction in Ebbsfleet, Kent. The technology being installed to these homes is expected to deliver speeds of about 100Mbps
This is a sorry road to go down as the distance from most homes to the cabinet is pretty small and yet by using this method BT will ensure consumers will have a service that is at least half the speed of fibre direct to home, this surely is a short term outlook its after all not hard to ask consumers to underwrite some of this next gen tech if it brings a major scale service improvement.
How many here would pay for the last mile fibre link from the cabinet to their homes if they knew it woulds increase their net speeds hundreds of percentage points ?
