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30 Mar 2010
BT has revealed the locations of the 303 exchanges around the UK that it will upgrade to run its new superfast broadband service later this year. The list of exchanges is available here.
The telcoms giant claimed that the rollout of the new fibre services will enable 40 per cent of the UK, or around 10 million homes, to access broadband speeds of 40Mbit/s.
London and the south east stand to benefit the most from the new upgrades, with 113 and 77 areas respectively being slated to receive the new services. The north west will receive 30 upgrades, while the west midlands will see 18 exchanges improved.
However, only one area in Northern Ireland and seven areas in Wales will be upgraded, while no areas beyond Exeter in the south west will get the new service, underlining the growing digital divide that all political parties have pledged to address.
Additionally, the east midlands will have 19 exchanges upgraded, the east of England 16, Yorkshire and Humber eight and the north east four.
The work will take place from late 2010, and is expected to be completed by the summer of 2011. The first customers will be able to access the service from the end of 2010.
BT also confirmed that the technology will be available on a wholesale basis to any other companies providing broadband services.
The move is the latest in the battle between BT and Virgin Media to become the standard bearer for superfast broadband in the UK. Virgin Media is heavily promoting its 50Mbit/s and 100Mbit/s services.
Update: BT has responded to V3.co.uk readers on Scotland availability and exchange locations.
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Do you agree?
Look Properly!
Too all those who cant find the list, read the first paragraph of the article more carefully and you will see how to access the list! That's the only clue i'm giving you! :-)
Posted by: observant one 12 Aug 2010
They cant even support copper speeds!
I would be more than happy if BT could support my current 7mbps connection to the exchange in their core network. At peak times throughput is down up to 75% Super fast broadband is just a vehicle for BT to compete with the cable TV companies like Virgin Media and SKY. The worse aspect is that BT are deploying at exchanges in areas already well served with cable.
Posted by: N Black 02 Apr 2010
Why always london?
I live in East Midlands on a exchange which apparently supports 8mbps and last year BT put fibre optic cabling down the main street to the exchange according to the businesses on the street however no speed increase. Why does London and the south get upgrades when they already get pretty fast internet? If the broadband providers aren't careful they will start to loose alot of customers to mobile internet which is about the same price and can be used in almost any location.
Posted by: Mike 01 Apr 2010
yada yada yada - WHERE?
Meaningless without a list of specific sites!
Posted by: chris wheatley 01 Apr 2010
scotland ignored
so no mention of scotland for an upgrade.....no worries we are only a small country with 5 million people...virgin will do well up here then
Posted by: hibby 31 Mar 2010
No surprise there then
Wonderful, but not suprising that BT will delivery most of it's "superfast services" to London and the SE. Personally I would be much happier if this stumbling giant of a (almost) monopoly would first concentrate on delivering a minimum of 8mb (or even 2 in the area I've most recently moved from), before attempting to show that it is still unable to compete with Virgin Media. Such a shame that Virgin Media has such a small customer base, there are very few homes in Derbyshire that are able to access the full serve.
Posted by: David Guy 31 Mar 2010
Intersting piece
Dan, Interesting article - a map of the locations would have been really useful. Does one exist or a list of the locations?. My interest is in Yorkshire & the Humber roll-outs.
Posted by: mick mckigney 31 Mar 2010
Regarding superfast broadband
I notice that Scotland is not mentioned in the upgrades, which I think is par for the course. I live in a rural area of this region and have BT Option2. This advertised as speeds up to 20 meg, which is a con as the most I can get is any thing between 2.8 and 3.9, for this I pay £21 a month. By the looks of things I will be in my box before there is any improvement. I am 73 years old
Posted by: Andy MacPherson 31 Mar 2010
So where are they?
This key fact is missing from the article. Who will be getting this upgrade?
Posted by: Paul Webster 30 Mar 2010