These products, which have only previously been available to CPs on an ‘early market deployment’ basis, will initially be available within the 15 exchange areas where FTTP infrastructure has been deployed to date. However, this availability will improve as Openreach expands the FTTP network to other exchange areas and explores the option of deploying the service to new housing developments and multi dwelling units such as apartment blocks.
From Spring 2013, Openreach also plans to make FTTP available ‘on demand’ in areas covered by its Fibre to the Cabinet (FTTC) network, and last week announced eight sites around the UK where it will pilot this service with CPs.
Openreach is currently making fibre broadband available to homes and businesses across the UK. It has passed ten million premises with the technology to date and is due to pass approximately two thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.
Mike Galvin, Openreach MD for Network Investment said: “The commercial launch of FTTP is a major milestone. Whilst we believe that FTTC will provide speeds that are suitable for consumers for some time, these FTTP products will allow CPs to offer SMEs and other bandwidth-hungry users the option of even higher speeds – some of the fastest in the world – and build propositions which help to grow the market for these higher-speed services.”