BT map indicates which exchanges will get fibre broadband

The government has been taking an aggressive stance to improve the UK’s broadband networks. It was for this purpose that the Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) project was launched. The goal of the program was to provide universal broadband access to the whole of Britain, where all users would be able to access the Internet at speeds of at least 2Mbps. Furthermore, the program also pushed to provide at least ninety percent of the UK with next-generation broadband services by the year 2015.

BT Broadband has been one of the firms actively involved in the program. Just this year, they announced the launch of their new superfast broadband service packages, Infinity, which would be making use of Fibre-to-the-Premises technology.

BT has been laying down fibre since early this year. The projected year of completion for their deployment was initially announced to be 2015. However, this was followed up by a statement from BT saying that they were working ahead of schedule and would be able to complete the project by the year 2014.

BT has now created a map that subscribers can use to check with exchanges are next in line for upgrades. The map will indicate if the exchange you’re looking up is going to have its FTTP service Infinity anytime soon.

The fibre broadband availability checker will require you to input your postcode in order to do the check. Once enterred, a map showing the exchanges near your location and around your area will be displayed. The status of the exchanges will be indicated on the map.

Some competing providers, however, were quite critical of BT’s map. They expressed that it would have done many people good had BT launched the map earlier. Some also complained about the lack of details or information that the map provided.

Chief technology officer of fibre company Timico, Trefor Davies, wrote in their company blog: “BT Openreach has launched its own FTTC Exchange Availability Checker map (or in BT parlance Superfast fibre broadband map). This comes over a year after a similar tool was provided on this blog. Openreach asked me to pull that map. This new one does go some way towards replacing the one on the blog though it doesn’t go into the detail by cabinet.”

Source – PC Pro