UK ISP Spitfire Selected by BT Wholesale for VDSL Trials
Spitfire is not only an ISP in the United Kingdom, but also a roaring internet telephony operator here. It has come into limelight recently when the BT wholesale had chosen it to be a part of its maiden consumer trials of the Very High Speed Digital Subscriber Line (VDSL) technology. This move from BT Wholesale, enlists Spitfire to an elite group chosen by the former, which includes some other popular ISPs too, such as Plusnet and Entanet.
Spitfire, very much to its liking, might be enlisted to the most advanced VDSL2 trials of BT that is generally viewed as the last mile solution of BT to realize its next generation fibre broadband (Fibre to the Cabinet or FTTC) roll out in the country. This is all about a fibre link going to the local street cabinet from a BT exchange, which would in its turn enable BT to deliver internet access at the speeds of up to 40 Mbps to the households, through the existing copper telephone cables, as well as the VDSL2 technology.
The download and upload speeds effectuated by the initial trials are expected to be something like 40Mbps and 2Mbps respectively. The upload speeds might get enhanced to 5Mbps in the later stages of the trial. The speed pertinent to the new technology would also be, similar to the ADSL technology that offers up to 8Mbps speeds, rate adaptive, depending on the quality and length of the copper wires. However, initial survey results show that a speed of 15Mbps can be conveniently handled by 99 percent of the existing copper lines.
The trial will of six months duration, starting from the 1st July 2009 from the exchanges of BT, initially at Muswell Hill, and laterat Whitchurch in Cardiff. A budget of GBP 1.5 billion has been estimated by BT to roll out FTTC services by 2012 to as many as ten million households in the UK
