BT announces Race to Infinity winners

BT has announced the six winning Race to Infinity villages that will be added to the firm's Infinity network that offers broadband speeds of up to 40Mbit/s.

Locations in Cambridgeshire, Shropshire, Oxfordshire, Hampshire and the Scottish Borders will all be upgraded to receive the new superfast services, which also offer upload speeds of up to 10Mbit/s.

BT said that more than 360,000 votes were cast in the three-month competition that ended on 31 December, and BT's Openreach division will complete a survey of the winning areas to assess and plan for the fibre deployments to be carried out by 2012.

The telco also intends to look into the villages that just missed out on the top six places as part of wider attempts to bring fibre deployments to final-third areas of the UK.

"Congratulations to the winners and commiserations to those who haven't been successful, but all their efforts haven't been in vain because their votes will help influence our plans in the future," said Gavin Patterson, chief executive of BT Retail.

However, BT believes that public sector support will be required to bring fibre deployments to more final-third areas.

Various trials and delivery methods are being undertaken by internet service providers in the UK to close this divide, including satellites such as the recently launched KA-Sat from Eutelsat, and the use of telegraph poles by Virgin Media.

BT is also involved in a £132m part-funded rollout of fibre across Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly to be completed by 2014.

The winning Race to Infinity villages are:

1. Baschurch, Shropshire
2. Blewbury, Oxfordshire
3. Caxton, Cambridgeshire
4. Innerleithen, Scottish Borders
5. Madingley, Cambridgeshire
6. Whitchurch, Hampshire