Recently broadband and communications giant BT announced that it was doubling the availability of its superfast broadband service, and one broadband industry group has claimed that this move is unlikely to affect the decisions of rivals when it comes to investment in the service.

It was announced recently by the broadband and communications giant BT that it was to double the availability of its superfast broadband service, making the higher speeds available to far more people in the UK. The provider announced that up to two and a half million homes and businesses in the UK would have access to its higher speeds. The original plan from BT had been to provide speeds of up to 60Mbps to up to one millions homes and businesses, but now the idea is to provide faster speeds of up to 100Mbps to over double that number of homes and businesses.

However, one broadband industry group has claimed that the decision that has been made by BT with regards to its superfast broadband availability will probably not affect the decisions of rival broadband and communications firms when it comes to investment in the service, although the decision by BT has been seen as a very positive one.

An official from the broadband group said that although the BT measure was an encouraging one it was unlikely to affect rivals when it came to investment. He said: “BT’s move is unlikely to encourage rival operators to invest in super-fast broadband any more than they already are. Most of BT’s rivals are already using cost saving methods.”

He went on to state: “Most of BT’s rivals are already using cost saving methods to deploy their new networks and, as a result, short of receiving additional financial support from the government, their situation shall remain largely unchanged.”

Source - BCS