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BT announces 19 new exchanges for superfast fibre broadband upgrade

BT has announced that 19 more exchanges are due to get a superfast broadband upgrade as a result of its £2.5 billion commercial plan

Exchanges in Derbyshire, Greater London, Greater Manchester, Leicestershire, Merseyside, Tyne and Wear, West Midlands and West Yorkshire will be upgraded, this will make fibre-based broadband available to 195,000 more homes and businesses. 

BT announces 19 new exchanges for superfast fibre broadband upgrade

The 19 exchanges are: 

  • Anfield, Merseyside
  • Ashfield, West Midlands
  • Beacon, West Midlands
  • Bradford, West Yorkshire
  • Canary Wharf, Greater London
  • Farnworth, Greater Manchester
  • Goscote, Leicestershire
  • Halesowen, West Midlands
  • Holmewood, Derbyshire
  • Leeds, West Yorkshire
  • Netherley, Merseyside
  • Newcastle, East Tyne and Wear
  • North Shields, Tyne and Wear
  • Old Whittington, Derbyshire
  • Orrell, Greater Manchester
  • Ripponden, West Yorkshire
  • Rubery, West Midlands
  • Stone Cross, West Midlands
  • Wakefield, West Yorkshire

As well as this, Openreach will also carry out additional infill work in 293 previously announced exchanges areas. BT hasn’t said which areas will benefit but reveals that a total of 250,000 more locations will be able to order fibre-based services once the work is done. 

The addition of 445,000 more locations will see fibre-based broadband services available to over 19 million UK homes and premises in Spring 2014, when BT is due to finish its commercial roll out. 

By this time, a total of 1725 commercial exchanges will have been upgraded to allow for FTTC (Fibre to the Cabinet) to be sold to residential and business customers. 

Once done, Openreach engineers will then be free to work on communities across the UK that are benefitting from BDUK (Broadband Delivery for the UK)-funded projects. These will bring superfast connections to predominantly rural regions of the UK. 

So far BT has won all of the BDUK contracts and it’s looking highly likely that it will win them all. The BDUK projects will by 2017 have delivered superfast broadband to at least 95 per cent of premises across the UK, with those in the 5 per cent getting a basic service guaranteeing speeds of at least 2Mbps. 

 

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