BT Openreach Demo Ultrafast FTTP Broadband in Mayfair, London

BT has confirmed that around 3,000 homes and businesses in Mayfair (London’s West End) are among the first to benefit from its expanded roll-out of “ultrafast” Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) broadband technology, which is today being demoed to local councillors in the area.

Openreach has already made their pure fibre optic lines available to over 300,000 UK premises through older deployments and they’re now working to extend this to 2 million premises around the United Kingdom by 2020.

The rough coverage plan for Westminster, Holborn and the City (London) has already been announced (here), but it was today confirmed that BT’s fibre optic network will become available to a further 360,000 homes and businesses in London over the next two years.

Andrew Whale, Openreach’s Chief Engineer, said:

“It’s great to see the latest Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) technology being deployed using the new methods we have developed recently. Using micro cables, which are small diameter cables designed to get through busy underground ducts, we are able to avoid costly and disruptive civil engineering work. This in turn makes deployment much quicker and enables FTTP to be available to more customers. It’s the first time that we’ve used micro cables in the West End.”

Philippa Roe, Leader of Westminster City Council, said:

“Providing modern broadband for businesses and residents in the heart of London makes a major contribution to our city’s economic success.

The West End Partnership and Openreach have been working closely to rollout superfast fibre broadband in Westminster and it is clear that this relationship is already bearing fruit.

This does not mean we are resting on our laurels. The council’s ambition is to see every Westminster business and resident connected to superfast and reliable fibre broadband, and we remain committed to come up with and support new ideas and innovations that will help us achieve this goal.”

At present the top download speed of Openreach’s FTTP network is 330Mbps (30Mbps upload), although this will shortly be pushed up to 1000Mbps (220Mbps upload) for premium business connections.