BT Openreach to upgrade 156 more exchanges to fibre-optic broadband

More details about areas that will get BT Openreach's super-fast fibre-optic broadband services are now available.

A further 156 exchanges are to be upgraded over this year and next, enabling more than 1.5 million consumer and businesses to get the next-generation broadband services.

BT has pledged £2.5bn to deliver fibre broadband to two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2015.

It said that most of the planned upgrades announced, which include the 10 exchanges that won the internet service provider's Race to Infinity competition which it launched last year (click here to see Computeractive's story about Race to Infinity), will happen this year; with up to 50 enabled by the end of the summer. The remaining exchanges will be offering fibre broadband by the end of 2012.

Openreach said it will provide industry with a more specific date for the enablement of each exchange six months prior to the upgrade.

David Campbell, managing director of Next Generation Access for Openreach, said: "Our fibre programme is well under way with more than four million premises now able to order a fibre-based broadband service from their chosen supplier.

"And today we're announcing a new set of locations serving a further 1.5 million premises, many of which will be able to enjoy the benefits of super-fast upload and download speeds from as early as this summer.

"We'll continue to work closely with industry and local and devolved authorities around the country in deciding where to deploy the technology next."

The upgrades will be a combination of Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC), offering speeds of up to 40Mbits/sec and the even faster Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP), delivering speeds of up to 100Mbits/sec.