UPD BT Add 9 Final UK Exchanges to its Commercial Fibre Broadband Rollout

BT has just announced that they’ve been able to squeeze an additional 9 telephone exchanges into their national £2.5bn roll-out of up to 80Mbps (Megabits per second) capable Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) based superfast broadband ISP products around the United Kingdom.

At present BT’s commercial roll-out (excluding BDUK) aims to cover around 66% of the UK (19 million homes and business) by spring 2014 and the last (final) major deployment update was published in February 2013 (here). Since then the service has expanded to pass over 15 million premises (roughly half of the country) and it continues to grow.

But as a result of today’s announcement around 58,000 extra homes and businesses across these extra areas will have access to the technology between this Summer (2013) and the end of Spring 2014. In addition, infill work (i.e. expanding fibre into areas that were previously thought to be not commercially viable) should help to reach another 78,000 premises served by previously announced exchanges.

The exchanges announced today are all relatively small exchanges and do not materially change the total figure.

The Final 9 Commercial FTTx Telephone Exchange Upgrades
GREAT WAKERING – Essex
HOLLAND ON SEA – Essex
HORTON BANK – West Yorkshire
HOYLAND – South Yorkshire
INGATESTONE – Essex
JARROW – Tyne and Wear
KENTON – Tyne and Wear
LOWER SHELTON – Bedfordshire
WEST MERSEA – Essex

It’s important to mention that BT’s FTTx technology typically covers an average of around 85% of homes and businesses within an enabled telephone exchange area (i.e. having an upgraded exchange doesn’t mean you’ll be able to receive the service because street cabinet coverage is just as important).

Any future progress (beyond 66%) will now come through the government supported Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) scheme and related projects with public funding support, which generally aims to cover 95% of the country with superfast broadband (25Mbps+) by 2017.

Previous BT FTTx UK Exchange Updates
* March 2009 – 29 (FTTC) Exchanges
* July 2009 – 69 (FTTC) Exchanges
* January 2010 – 63 (FTTC) Exchanges
* March 2010 – 303 (FTTC) Exchanges
* September 2010 – 159 (FTTC/FTTP) Exchanges
* January 2011 – 41 (FTTC/FTTP) Exchanges
* April 2011 – 156 (FTTC/FTTP) Exchanges
* June 2011 – 66 (FTTC/FTTP) Exchanges
* December 2011 – 178 (FTTC) Exchanges
* March 2012 – 73 (FTTC) Exchanges
* June 2012 – 98 (FTTC) Exchanges
* September 2012 – 163 (FTTC) Exchanges
* February 2013 – 99 (FTTC) Exchanges

UPDATE 3:29pm

Since some people asked. Openreach has confirmed to ISPreview.co.uk that the commercial fibre broadband roll-out covers around 1,700 telephone exchanges and 50,000 street cabinet upgrades.