High Speed Broadband take the Broadband Speed Test

UK Broadband Speeds to improve dramatically

In an attempt to remain amongst the leaders of the global high speed broadband market BT plans to install a fibre network that offers speeds 20 times faster than the average UK household connection.

The issue of broadband speed is much discussed with some crying foul of broadband marketing messages - see Ofcom warn providers about misleading UK broadband speed claims.

later this year, BT's Open Reach units will begin installing superfast fibre connections instead of traditional copper phone wires at a housing development in Ebbsfleet Kent. It will offer the lines to BT Retail and rival ISPs and media businesses enabling these companies to provide a host of bandwidth-hungry services such as HD TV and film downloads.

You can check your current download speeds with BT’s Broadband Speed Test

BT will provide the basic infrastructure and service providers will be able to build their own services on the back of it.

The move is welcomed by business leaders who last year warned that the UK risks being left behind in the high speed broadband race by countries such as the US, Japan, Germany, France and even Korea where new fibre networks are being installed.

The 100MB top speed available over the new fibre network is more than 20 times faster than the current average UK residential broadband connection, which Ofcom caslculates last year at hovering around 4.5-MB.

The top speed available in Ebbsfleet also ranks alongside speeds already on offer in Japan, Korea and the US and will keep Britain in competition with France and Germany where largescale fibre networks are to be built over the forth-coming years.

This project is just the start of Britain's journey into the next phase of high speed broadband. Last year Ofcom launched a consultation into the regulation of next generation access networks.

Replacing copper phone lines with fibre will hardly help those in search of cheap broadband will cost upwards of £10bn and many in the industry expect the country's next generation broadband network to actually be a patchwork of fibre, high-speed copper lines and wireless access in more rural areas.

BT hopes to be able to start installing fibre connections at all new major residential developments in the UK from this year and is in discussions with Ofcom as to what regulation is needed. It is reckoned that it is no more expensive to deliver fibre based infrastructure than it is to put copper lines in the ground.

In the meantime UK customers can still achive reasonably high speed cheap broadband service from BT - lets hope they strive to keep the costs for users of these new fibre services down.

More about uk broadband speed and here