Next generation broadband: footprint doubles and prices reduce

BT Wholesale has recently announced an intention to expand the UK footprint of Wholesale Broadband Connect (WBC) to reach 20 million homes and businesses by Spring 2011 and also to substantially reduce prices.

Such an expansion would virtually double the WBC footprint. The aim is to help Communications Providers (CPs) to accelerate the move of their customers to this 21^st Century Network broadband service, offering speeds of up to 24Mbit/s* plus greater control, choice and flexibility.

WBC already has more than 40% coverage of the UK and we are on track to achieve 55% by Spring 2010. Now - subject to wholesale customer demand - we intend to WBC-enable a total of 1500 exchanges, so potentially reaching 75% of UK end-users by Spring 2011.

And if you're keen to expand and grow as your market opens up, you can now look forward to doing it more cost effectively too.

That's because from 1 January 2010 we plan to cut our WBC prices. Bandwidth charges will go down by almost 50% - to £40 (excluding VAT) per Mbit/s per month - to help you to satisfy the market's voracious appetite for high-bandwidth applications. At the same time we're looking to standardise WBC line rental across the wider next generation broadband footprint to £5.88 (excluding VAT) per line, per month.

We're also adding value as we cut the costs. Customers are currently helping us to trial fibre services in preparation for the launch of FTTC (fibre-to-the-cabinet) services early next year. We also intend to introduce Real-Time QoS (Quality of Service) which will underpin - for example - high-quality voice and video-conferencing services. Also on the horizon is the introduction of Annex M. This enables downstream bandwidth to be traded to boost upstream rates: something that's sure to be an attractive proposition for your small- and medium-size customers for their IP-VPN voice services and data transfers.

BT Wholesale's Managing Director - Products, Cameron Rejali comments: "Demonstrating our commitment to deliver next generation broadband across the UK, we are delighted to confirm our intention to significantly extend our WBC footprint and lower prices to help Communications Providers deliver faster speeds to more of their customers: essential benefits in the tough economic and competitive environment we face today."

*Please note that line speed will vary according to a number of factors including the distance from the exchange and the line speed in any one location will therefore be the highest stable speed a line can support up to a maximum of 24Mbit/s.

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Want to know more? Between now and December 2009 we'll be pleased to share with you - on request - a range of possible roll-out scenarios to help you assess how you can gain from the growing footprint. Please contact your BT Wholesale account management team to find out more.