Positive potential for ‘ultrafast’ copper broadband

Just when we thought we’d pushed copper as far as it could go, we’re excited to unveil the results of new field trials. Until now, it was thought that getting ‘ultrafast’ broadband speeds needed a dedicated business line or a fibre connection all the way from the exchange.

But, ‘copper load’ of this (you’ll see what we did there in a minute), as the latest trials show ‘ultrafast’ broadband with combined speeds of up to a massive one Gigabit per second (1000Mbps), can be delivered via a mix of fibre and copper cables.

During the trials we used a 19m length of copper, and recorded huge downstream speeds of around 800Mbps and upstream speeds of more than 200Mbps.

Because we can roll out this technology to telephone poles or junction boxes, close to homes and business it has some big advantages over other more disruptive options.

Firstly, the G.Fast FTTDP technology might be cheaper and easier to install. Because less fibre and less engineering is needed, ‘ultrafast’ broadband could even be installed by your customers themselves, avoiding the need for any home engineering visits.

These results have come through just when we’re about to open a new ultrafast broadband lab at our Adastral Park R&D centre in Ipswich. Over the coming months, our researchers will be based here while they study the full technical capabilities of G.Fast hardware.

You can read the full press release here

Fibre island projects making waves

As the superfast fibre broadband rollout heads into the home straight, we’re moving into new territory – in every sense. It was always going to be the case that connecting rural and difficult to reach communities to the fibre network would be the most challenging aspect of the roll-out.

Recently we saw two pioneering subsea cabling projects hit the headlines as they aim to connect remote island communities off the coast both north and south of the UK.

Off the West Coast of Scotland, we saw the start of the biggest fibre cable laying project ever undertaken in the UK.  This will deliver superfast broadband to some of the country’s most remote island communities and, as it progresses, will see around 400km of cable being laid.

There’s obviously a huge amount to consider with a project like this, not least the impact on the environment and users of the sea. Early routes where subsea cables are being deployed include Largs, Cumbrae, Cowal, Mull, Oban, Ardgour and Corran. This is part of a three-year project to bring superfast broadband to the region.

In a similar vein, a major month-long operation is currently underway to divert a fibre optic cable between the UK and Spain to the Isles of Scilly, in a pioneering scheme to give the islanders much faster fibre broadband.

The 939 kilometre cable between Porthcurno, Cornwall, and Santander, Spain, has remained unused on the seabed of the Atlantic Ocean since it was taken out of service in 2006 after 11 years of handling high-speed international communications.

The cable has been cut at two points in the Atlantic and a section diverted to the Isles of Scilly. And it’s expected that the islanders will be able to order high-speed fibre broadband before the end of the year.

Until now, the 2,200 residents of the Isles of Scilly have relied upon a broadband service provided by a radio link between Lands End and the islands.

Ethernet price reductions make this the perfect time to invest

With the Ethernet price review coming to a conclusion, there is now a whole new range of reductions on rental and connection prices – and that’s on top of our year-long migration offer if you move from WES, BES or WEES.

Ethernet Access Direct offers some terrific advantages over WES, BES and WEES products. And you can take advantage of a connection charge of just £585 when you transfer your legacy WES/WEES circuits to EAD 100.

The offer runs from 1 April 2014 to 30 March 2015 and you can get more information on our migration website.

Ethernet portfolio price drop

We’re also pleased to announce substantial price reductions across our Ethernet portfolio, including up to:

• 16% off EAD 1Gbit/s rental prices
• 35% off Ethernet Backhaul Direct 

And there’s a reduction on EAD connection charges to offset the launch of the ECC flat rate charge on 1 June 2014, improving the proportion of EAD orders without variable ECCs from 70% to 92%!

You can get all the details on this and other offers in the Ethernet pages of the Openreach website.

Superfast love: from white wedding to underground cabling

A husband and wife have discovered the secret to being happily married - by working together underground! Openreach engineers David and Laura Gainsford work in all weathers to lay new fibre optic cabling as part of the multi-million pound Superfast Surrey broadband project.

The sometimes wet and muddy conditions are a far cry from the sunny day 19 years ago when Laura walked up the aisle at Holy Trinity Church, Wallington, in a pure white dress to marry David. But Laura, said: “Moving from an office based job to working outside, was the best thing I ever did. It sounds corny but I love working with my husband.”

As part of the partnership between BT, Surrey County Council and BDUK, David and Laura work on extending faster broadband throughout Surrey including the village of Puttenham where fibre broadband has just ‘gone live’.

David, said: “Every day is different and with this job I’m able to work on a project from start to finish. I enjoy the challenge, it’s very satisfying and working with Laura is an added bonus.

The new fibre based broadband services have now started to become available in Puttenham and by the time the roll-out is complete around 1,300 homes and businesses in the village will have access.

Superfast Surrey builds on BT’s own commercial roll-out of fibre broadband in the county, which has already made the technology available to more than 380,000 Surrey homes and businesses. The partnership is working mainly in the more rural, difficult to reach areas, aiming to bring fibre broadband to more than 99 per cent of the county’s homes and businesses by the end of 2014. Superfast Surrey’s ‘programme area’ will provide fibre access to an additional 84,000 premises, which fall outside the private sector’s commercial plans.

The new fibre-based network is open to all broadband service providers on an equal basis. Households and businesses in Surrey will therefore benefit from a highly competitive market, bringing greater choice and affordable prices from a wide range of internet service providers.

Jurassic Parking for Openreach engineers

It might not be the kind of winter warning you’d expect, but if you’re out and about in the next few weeks, watch out for dinosaurs. Yes, dinosaurs. With 400 vans being added to the fleet to help with our superfast fibre roll-out we wanted something eye-catching on the side...

The first of our three new designs to promote the power of fibre features a roaring T-Rex "For TV services with bite".

Next up is the slightly less scary "No more humdrum TV" hummingbird

And an astronaut promoting “Stellar TV on demand’ will complete the trio.

So remember to keep an eye out for our new vans in your area.

Fibre broadband: the invisible hero

What's the best thing about fibre broadband? Well it's not TV on demand, not even HD movie streaming, and definitely not video calls with your granny. The best thing about fibre is never having to think about your internet connection again. Programmer Darryl Clark lifts the lid on life in the fast lane...

The first rule of fibre club is: you do not talk about fibre club (or at least not after the first month of having it). Why? Well, do you remember when you had dial-up? You couldn't use the phone at the same time as browsing the internet! You had to plan downloads in advance. You didn't stop thinking about your connection speed - or lack of it.

Then you moved to ADSL and were overcome by the dizzying speeds. Along came YouTube, Flash websites and possibly children to drag your connection back to a crawl. Now there are tablets, smart phones, interactive televisions, iPlayer, games consoles and a myriad of other connected devices all sucking the life out of your national average 6Mbit/s ADSL broadband speed (Ofcom Nov 2012). And you're back to thinking about your connection speed again.

Make the move to fibre optic and the connection speed average is 41.0Mbit/s. During the first month you'll shout this from the rooftops. You'll lose on average 12.4 friends on Facebook who will be bored to tears by your constant bandwidth boasting. Then suddenly your fibre optic connection will no longer be the first thing you think about in the morning. Why? A falling out? No need for it? No, because it will become like everything else useful, a stalwart, a silent hero, the 4th emergency service.

Nobody yearns for a faster electricity connection or ten times more gas pressure. If I want to turn all of the lights on in my house then I'll do it without thinking. It's the same with fibre broadband. If all four members of my house want to be connected on a device whilst we also watch Paul and Mary mock lopsided Victoria sponges on iPlayer then it will just happen.

The only time I think about my connection now is when it's cruelly robbed from me by a cursed technical glitch (less likely as fibre optic is more stable than full copper broadband). It's only then that I realise how much I need/want/depend on/demand/can't live without my fibre broadband connection.

My name is Darryl Clark. I have "up to 40Mbit/s" fibre optic broadband and the last time I checked my download speed was 38Mbit/s. Unfriend me if you want but I am superfast and proud.

Darryl is a programmer for Westhill Communications

Mission Impossible: getting into the BT Tower

In a list compiled by Time Out magazine this week, the top of the BT Tower was named as one of "London's top 10 impossible places to get into". In fact, at number 2 in the list, only the christening of the latest member of the royal family, Prince George, was seen as more of a challenge for the capital's gatecrashers.

Standing at 189m tall the BT Tower has become an iconic feature of London’s skyline. And the 47-year-old building's super-charged lifts can whisk visitors up to the 34th floor at 400ft per second. Once there, you’ll find yourself on a rotating viewing platform with breathtaking 360 panoramic view of London.

The Tower has evolved with the times. Even at the grand old age of 47 ‘he’, The Tower, can be found tweeting on Twitter - complaining about the pigeons or pointing out things to the ‘ant-like’ Londoners on the ground.

"Hello. I'm the BT Tower. I'm a really tall (189m) 47 year-old male (obviously... have you never read Freud?). follow me if you would. @bttowerlondon"

Unfortunately, the famous 34th floor revolving restaurant and viewing platform has been closed to the public since 1980, and on the rare occasion there's a tour it's almost impossible to nab a place.

So if you ever find yourself invited to an Openreach event the top of the BT Tower, cancel all your other plans (unless you've been invited to the Royal Christening) and make sure you go. You might never get another chance.