UK ISP BE Broadband and O2 Delay Launch of Superfast Broadband to 2013

Internet provider BE Broadband has this morning informed their customers that they’re “not making very good progress on fibre” and will once again have to delay their plans to launch a full superfast broadband (FTTC) service until 2013. The move is also likely to affect parent ISP O2 UK (Telefonica).

BE revealed during September 2011 that it was taking them “longer than we originally thought” to launch their superfast services, which meant that their original plans to launch the new packages before the end of 2011 had to be delayed to 2012.

Since then hopes had been raised after BE began trials of its FTTC service at the Barking (Greater London) telephone exchange and announced a major overhaul of its core network during 2012, which would improve capacity and provide better support for a number of future products.

BE Statement

We’re afraid we’re not making very good progress on fibre. There are lots of reasons for this, but the bottom line is we’re unlikely to launch a service across the BE network in 2012.

Many of you told us you were prepared to wait for a fibre service from BE, so we’re sorry to bring you this news and for keeping you waiting.

We’re still looking into launching a service on a limited basis later this year, combining our unshaped, unlimited network with the higher speeds of fibre-to-the-cabinet. It’s just taking much longer than we’d like.

Customers are likely to be left feeling both extremely frustrated and confused by the latest news, which oddly states that the service won’t and then will launch, albeit on a “limited basis“, this year. BE’s network is also shared by O2 and as a result any delay affecting one usually tends to hold up the other. A double whammy of frustration.