Openreach has unveiled plans to upgrade broadband services for a further million homes and businesses over the next nine months.
Areas in cities and towns including London, Leicester, Manchester, Worthing, Stoke, Birmingham and Blackpool will benefit from the upgrades.
Openreach, the broadband infrastructure unit at BT, said it is extending its Gfast network to 81 new locations as part of a “multi-million pound investment”.
It has already been deployed in 250.
Gfast uses existing copper infrastructure and does not involve any excavation work. It changes the way broadband signals are transmitted from existing street cabinets to boost speeds up to 330Mbps – seven times today’s UK average.
“Currently, the UK is a world leader in digital infrastructure and services, but as the digital revolution rushes forwards and the demand for data continues to grow, we need to sure we stay ahead of the curve,” said Openreach managing director for strategic infrastructure development Kim Mears.
“That’s why we’re investing in faster, more reliable network infrastructure to facilitate all the activities we want to do now, and also those we haven’t even dreamt of doing in 10 years’ time.”
In the long term Openreach plans to connect around 10 million homes with full-fibre ultrafast broadband infrastructure, replacing copper telephone lines with fibre-optic cabling.
We reported in July how the UK has slipped behind countries such as Madagascar when it comes to broadband speeds.