UK Broadband ISP TalkTalk ( The Carphone Warehouse ) has become the latest provider to confirm its involvement with trials of BT's 'up to' 40Mbps next generation Fibre to the Cabinet ( FTTC ) broadband technology, which uses VDSL2 to deliver the "last mile" connection over existing copper wires into homes.

The trial, which began on 1st July 2009, will run for a period of up to 6 months from the BT exchanges at Muswell Hill (London) and, shortly afterwards, at Whitchurch (Cardiff). For those that have been living under a rock, FTTC can deliver download speeds of up to 40Mbps, with initial upload speeds 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 local street 'cabinet', as opposed to the more distant '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).