UK ISP Be, which has been made famous for its 'up to 24Mbps' broadband ADSL2+ service, has secured up to £24.5 million in full funding for a national roll-out (to begin later this month):

With £24.5 million of funding in place, Be will start their national roll-out and build on the 52 exchanges that have been provisioned in London already. Together with further expansion in London, Manchester and Birmingham will be the first other cities to benefit from the roll-out which will aim to cover almost half of the population by the end of 2006.

“The investment enables us to deliver the fastest broadband available in the UK to an even larger number of consumers,” said Boris Ivanovic, Be Director. “Having already pushed broadband technology to the limits we are now better placed than ever to make the UK a world leader in broadband, and for us to continue to lead the market.”

Co-founders Boris Ivanovic and Dana Pressman provided the initial funding, with the remaining amount invested by the Novator One investment fund. Bruce McInroy and Constantine Gonticas from Novator Partners LLP the investment manager of Novator One will be joining the Be Un Limited board.

“We believe there is strong demand in the UK broadband market for a 24 meg service,” said Bruce McInroy, Telecom Investments Partner, from Novator “We chose to back a management team with a proven track record of successful delivery of highspeed services to customers.”

Be's plan is quite typical of most LLU providers in that they're targeting dense urban areas as the most likely source for a return on investment. This is a fair and economical way of doing things, although it does rather leave more rural areas out in the cold.

Mind you, those of us surrounded by trees also quite like the under-congested nature of our beloved local exchanges =).