ISP Zen Internet UK, one of the most reliable and independent internet access providers (ISP) in the market, has today announced the launch of its first live "Up to 100Mbps" Fibre-to-the-Premises ( FTTP ) broadband technology trials. Several of Zen's customers are already known to be involved.

FTTP (FTTH) technology, which will also offer upload speeds of up to 30Mbps, takes the fibre optic cable directly to your home or business. As a result it almost completely bypasses the existing (slow) copper BT network and is able to deliver much faster connection speeds. See our recent - Examining BT's 110Mbps fttp Fibre Optic Broadband - article for more.

The FTTP trials themselves are scheduled to run until the end of Summer 2011. Bradwell Abbey (Milton Keynes) and Highams Park (North London) are already underway, with Leytonstone, York and Chester South planned for April and May 2011.


BT is expected to announce the commercial launch of its FTTP service soon, which will begin after the current trials have concluded. So far over 50 telephone exchanges are set to be upgraded by 2012 with FTTP, though it will only reach 270,000 UK homes by September 2011.

In the meantime Zen Internet already has a range of up to 40Mbps FTTC services, which were launched last year. FTTC uses part of the old BT copper network and is therefore slower, but still very fast if you can get it. However, they're definitely not the most affordable ISP around (prices +vat).


We note that the minimum FTTC downstream speeds have since risen from 8Mbps to 12Mbps and from 12Mbps to 16Mbps respectively.