BT’s fiber installation work going on at slow pace

BT’s broadband job execution seems to be behind schedule. The fiber-to-the-premises (FTTP) rollout has not covered as much as planned. Up-gradation of exchanges has been delayed.

In the meantime, trials of the new fiber system have been completed in St. Agnes, Cornwall. Further testing will be conducted in summer. Commercial roll out is expected next year.

However, the common people cannot afford to pay for the services. BT says that the higher cost is because of the large installation costs and the very high speeds of 300 Mbps. Anyway the price may not be too much for the Small and medium enterprises (SMEs). Better information about the pricing will be known once BT publishes its third quarter s results.

As per an article on the Financial Times, a shortcoming to the FTTP product is that

Openreach will not offer its GEA-FTTP product any more where it is funded entirely by BT. As per the original plan, 10 to 15% of the UK was to be provided with FTTP coverage out of the GBP 2.5 billion investment programme of BT.

Currently some parts of the UK do have fiber broadband through Ethernet with a speed of about 100 Mbps. But it is a costly affair involving heavy initial payment and about GBP 3,000 rent per month. It is expected that the new service will be available for GBP 1,500 initial payment and around GBP 100 to 200 monthly rentals.