UPDATE BT Trial Exchange Based FTTP Broadband with 500 Swindon Homes

BTOpenreach has announced that they are conducting a new trial of 330Mbps capable Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology with 500 homes on the North Swindon development of Haydon Wick. This will involve building fibre optic lines direct from the local telephone exchange.

We recall that residents of Haydon Wick have been campaigning for better broadband connectivity since early 2014 and the development is also part of or near to the area where UKB Networks were expected to cover with their new fixed wireless broadband platform, which recently hit some troubles due to a rejection of several new masts (here).

Otherwise the deployment sounds very similar to Openreach’s Fibre-Only Exchange (FOX) trial in 2013, which connected premises in the rural village of Deddington (Oxfordshire, England) to an FTTP service direct from the local telephone exchange (here).

Kim Mears, BTOR’s MD of Infrastructure Delivery, said:

“We’re really excited about the prospect of building an all fibre, ultrafast broadband network to parts of Haydon Wick.

The development has so far missed out on the benefits of fibre broadband, so I’m very happy to say that some of the locals will have access to some of the fastest speeds available across the whole of the UK from this Spring. What’s more, we’ve committed to leaving the FTTP network in place once the trial has finished, so residents in the trial area can continue to enjoy ultrafast speeds for a long time yet.”

Apparently the new trial will also “test a number of new techniques and processes for rolling out FTTP which could, if successful, be used to deploy the technology more quickly and widely to other parts of the UK,” although they don’t actually say what those techniques are (we wouldn’t be surprised if some of the same approaches as used in their FoD2 trial were playing a part).

The first customers should go live by the end of March 2016 and then the number of upgraded lines will ramp up over the coming weeks and months. Mind you one of the biggest problems with taking an Openreach based FTTP product is the lack of support among mainstream ISPs, but only a few smaller / more expensive providers and BT itself offering related packages.

UPDATE 28th Feb 2016:

The following street locations are included in BT’s FTTP technical deployment trial: Ariadne Road, Boatman Close, Clementine Road, Mayfly Road, Metis Road, Minnow Close, Ulysses Road and Voyager Drive.  A related FAQ is also online.

A similar trial is also under-way in the villages of Campton and Meppershall. The network build will serve the following addresses in Campton: Gravenhurst Road, Rectory Road, Priory Road, Greenway, Grange Gardens, Elm Close, Campton Road, Mill Lane, Brookside and The Glebe. Meanwhile only Shefford Road in Meppershall will benefit. A related FAQ can be found here.