Broadband provider AAISP UK (Andrews & Arnold) has kindly given Thinkbroadband a sneak peek into BT's first trial deployment of its next generation Fibre to the Cabinet ( FTTC ) broadband technology. The article focuses on an installation at East Finchley Budgens, a Muswell Hill (North London) based store.

The article includes hardware pictures, some early information on real-world upload speeds and appears to confirm that the first generation of FTTC services are likely to be 'Engineer Installations' as opposed to 'Self-Install' (aka - wires only / do it yourself).

BT is still a long way from settling on final retail prices, though it is already common knowledge that the installation price for FTTC is likely to be around £100. Service fees remain less certain but are likely to be comparable to existing BT based broadband services, albeit with faster speeds potentially costing more.

For those that have been living under a rock, FTTC can deliver download speeds of up to 40Mbps with initial trial upload performance of 2Mbps. The upload speeds will be increased to 5Mbps during the trial, then possibly 10Mbps and maybe even 15Mbps later on. The distance you live from your nearer local street 'cabinet', as opposed to the 'exchange', will still play a part in speed but most people should get at least 10Mbps for downloading.

Presently BT is spending £1.5bn deploying FTTC, not to mention a few minor/faster FTTP installations at special new build sites. The operators initial plan was to reach 40% of the UK (10 million homes) by 2012, though this could be completed far sooner following recent news (here).