First of 8000 Chapelton Homes Nearly Ready for 330Mbps FTTP Broadband

Scotland’s largest new town, Chapelton, which resides five miles south of Aberdeen and will eventually be home to 4,045 new houses located in four neighbourhoods (this could be expanded to 8,000 in the future), will shortly see its first residents move in and they can all expect to benefit from broadband speeds of over 300Mbps (Megabits per second).

Development of the town, which is expected to cost £2 billion and has been on-going for the past few years (although most of the physical construction began at the end of last year), is currently being managed by the Elsick Development Company (EDC). Happily EDC, unlike some other developers, has chosen to spend the money and work with BT in order to build a proper Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) network.

Earlier this year EDC’s Director, Lord Southesk, said: “Securing FTTP at Chapelton was vital for us to deliver our vision of a truly sustainable, modern community. I believe FTTP will be a big attraction for people looking for a new home later this year and beyond.”

BTOpenreach currently anticipates that all the new homes and businesses will be served directly by their fibre optic cabling, which they’ve previously said would make Chapelton the first town in Scotland to benefit from “ultra-fast broadband speeds“. It’s certainly a lot more capable than the ‘up to’ 80Mbps Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC) technology that most people are receiving.

The first Show Homes are due to open by the end of this month and they will be used to demonstrate the quality of the build and materials, while it’s understood that over 30 other homes have already been purchased or reserved (a more general interest has also been expressed by others for over 50% of the proposed homes).

It’s hoped that the first residents will then be able to move in by the end of 2014, so hopefully BT will have that fibre optic cable ready in time. We’ve seen a few developer gaffes where the homes are “made ready” before some of the key services, such as a working phone and or broadband line, have even been switched on.

Now if only the choice of Openreach FTTP supporting ISPs and packages was better. Even BT seems to hide their fastest BTInfinity Option 3 and 4 (FTTP) packages, possibly to avoid confusing consumers due to the limited availability of related services.