BT Openreach Set UK ISP Launch Date for 220Mbps FTTP Broadband

BTOpenreach has announced that ISPs in the United Kingdom will be able to offer its new 220Mbps (20Mbps upload) capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) based ultrafast broadband product to their customers from 1st June 2013. Final prices have also been confirmed.

The new product forms part of Openreach’s on-going efforts to “rationalise” and “streamline” their portfolio of Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) products (here), which currently top out with a 330Mbps (30Mbps uploads) package that very few ISPs have found attractive enough to offer (many have struggled with concerns over costly data capacity).

It’s hoped that the 220Mbps solution will thus be more attractive as it will eventually replace the old 110Mbps/100Mbps products and is somewhat cheaper than the 330Mbps option. In addition the final product also includes a prioritised rate of 20Mbps.

The new product comes with a one-off connection fee of £92 +vat, which includes an engineer visit to install the necessary equipment. On top of that the annual rental price ranges from £187.32 (£15.61 +vat per month) if you take the Transition Product (only available in conjunction with a phone line [WLR or MPF]) to £288 (£24 +vat per month) for the standalone solution.

By comparison the standalone price for Openreach’s current 110Mbps (15Mbps upload) service is £258.48 per year and prices for the 330Mbps (20Mbps upload) packages start at £396 (see the price link below for full details – transition products are a little cheaper). As usual this is the price that ISPs pay to BT and consumers will pay a lot more because the ISPs still need to add things like a profit margin and service costs on top.

It should of course be said that FTTP is currently only available to a very small number of premises around the United Kingdom (around 100,000 homes and businesses). But this should begin to change on 29th April 2013 when the operators new FTTP-on-Demand (FTTPoD / FoD) product begins its Early Market Deployment launch.

FTTPoD is unique because it makes Openreach’s FTTP products available to all existing FTTC (up to 80Mbps) supporting lines, which is currently on course to cover about 66% of the UK by spring 2014 and accounts for the bulk of BT’s national £2.5bn “fibre broadband” rollout. But to get FTTPoD you’ll need VERY deep pockets as the variable “last mile” construction costs will fall on your own pocket (full details).

Openreach’s Final 220Mbps FTTP Launch Pricing
http://www.openreach.co.uk/orpg/home/products/pricing/..