BT is invest a further £50 million into its commercial fibre broadband programme over the next three years, it has announced. The investment will benefit more than 30 cities, helping to make high speed broadband available to more than 400,000 additional premises.
The telecom operator is spending more than £3 billion on deploying fibre broadband and its open-access fibre network already passes more than 18 million homes and businesses. The footprint is likely to grow rapidly as rural fibre programmes are delivered.
UK fibre broadband availability currently stands at 73 per cent, when all networks are taken into account. The current Broadband Delivery UK programme, which receives financial support from both central and local government, is set to extend that coverage to around 90 per cent by late 2015 or early 2016.
Mike Galvin, managing director for network investment at Openreach, said: 'Our fibre programme is going extremely well with our engineers connecting homes and businesses across the UK. Some city areas have proved challenging in the past but we are returning to those and will pass hundreds of thousands of additional premises with fibre.
'We are reaching vast swathes of rural Britain with our public sector partners but we will upgrade these city areas under our own steam. Businesses in cities already have access to ultra-fast speeds but fibre will give them greater choice.'
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