BT has officially launched much faster FTTP (fibre-to-the-premises) connections, juicing things up from the current 330Mbps maximum to a full 1Gbps broadband, with prices also being revealed – and the latter weighs in at £80 per month wholesale.
There will be two new FTTP options which will become available to ISPs on December 6: an up to 500Mbps product with upload speeds of up to 165Mbps, and the 1Gbps offering which has uploads of 220Mbps.
The wholesale prices to service providers will be £55 per month for 500Mbps broadband and as mentioned £80 per month for 1Gbps, with a £500 connection fee.
For comparison, the current fastest 330Mbps option runs to £38 monthly, and the base FTTP product (40Mbps/2Mbps) comes in at £15.29. Of course, these are all wholesale prices, and the customer will pay more because the ISP needs to cover their costs, and the final price also depends on how much profit the service provider wants to squeeze out.
Adding a premium
These are likely to be more costly products though, given that in its press statement, BT noted that these will “be of particular interest to small and medium businesses”. And that’s likely to entail something of a premium (as is having the very fastest speeds, anyway).
BT said that its FTTP network is now available to over 327,000 homes and business premises across the UK, and that number is expected to double in the next year, eventually reaching two million at the end of the decade.
The company further noted that it has also been streamlining the FTTP installation, so instead of multiple visits from an engineer, the connection can now be set up in a two hour appointment.
BT also revealed that its Business Infinity customers (some 46,000 of them) on speeds of up to 38Mbps have been upgraded to 76Mbps free of charge.
A couple of weeks back, BT unveiled wholesale pricing for its G.fast broadband (essentially souped-up FTTC, with the last length of the connection still running over the phone line) pilot program that offers speeds of up to 330Mbps with 50Mbps uploads.
Via: ISP Review
