BT puts businesses in fibre fast lane... for a price
By Barry Collins
Posted on 25 Jan 2010 at 12:15
BT Business has released details of its forthcoming fibre broadband service, including a so-called "fast lane" for business traffic.
Following on from last week's announcement of consumer fibre pricing, BT's business division has followed suit.
It too will offer customers download speeds of up to 40Mbits/sec on the fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) network, although BT promises to give businesses "traffic priority at times of contention". Indeed, the company claims that business lines will have a "stable 12Mbits/sec throughput", although we're waiting to hear whether this amounts to a service level agreement (SLA) or is mere marketing waffle.
For that privilege businesses will be forced to pay at least £10 more than consumers, with business fibre packages starting from £30 per month exc VAT.
Businesses that want to boost upload speeds from the standard 2Mbits/sec to up to 10Mbits/sec will be asked to pay a minimum of £45 per month on BT Fibre Broadband Plus.
All tariffs are subject to a £75 connection charge and minimum contract terms ranging from one to two years.
BT says half a million homes and businesses will be connected to FTTC by the end of February, with 10 million due to be switched on by the summer of 2012.
From around the web
And the plan is?
So, if BT are so confident in reaching 10 million homes and businesses by 2012, why have they not announced more exchanges that will be enabled?
Perhaps they don't want a back-lash so early on in the roll0out from disappointed regions?
It seems, from reports, they are targetting areas that already have Virgin Fibre.
By treadmill on 25 Jan 2010 
It does indeed.
I actually wonder if some (would it be libellous to say stupid?) people on their business team looked at figures for fibre use in the UK and determined that many regions don't actually want it because the uptake is zero, so decided to mainly focus on those areas where people are interested in using it for FFTC? This does seem the only (il)logical explanation for the location of many of the currently announced exchange upgrades.
It is truly a shame that an agreement between Virgin and BT can't be reached to lease each others fibre so that many more premises in the UK can be covered. Actually I feel that the government should have stepped in to broker a fair agreement between the two companies on behalf of everyone who would benefit from shared fibre rather than competitive fibre.
By skarlock on 25 Jan 2010
I don't think it's that simple
I'm not an expert on Virgin's network but it does far more than Fast Internet, it also delivers video on demand and a large number of TV channels. Breaking out the boroadband to "share" with BT would, I suspect be "non-trivial".
If there were an economic case other ISPs (Talk-Talk, Be &c) could approach Virgin and do a deal on providing "the final mile" as an alternate to BT.
By milliganp on 26 Jan 2010
FTTC should be mandatory across the entire country, not just in the Virgin areas or where BT board members live. The sooner that happens the sooner BT can actually get people to take them seriously.
By Amnesia10 on 26 Jan 2010
logical explanation
@Skarlock. You forget that BT doesn't really want to spend the shareholders' money to fibre the whole country, so they need a good case to show the politicians that people are not really that bothered.
Therefore, upgrade a few 'pilot' areas that are covered by Virgin. Anyone who wants faster net will already have it & the BT take up will be low...
By greemble on 27 Jan 2010
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