Openreach announced the first nine locations that will benefit from a new Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) product specifically designed for SMEs in the UK, offering ultrafast speeds of up to 1Gbps. The roll out forms part of Openreach’s wider plan to make ultrafast broadband available - via FTTP and G.Fast technology - to up to one million businesses in the country by the end of 2020.
Openreach said that the deployment will be focused on SMEs located in high streets, science and business parks and clusters of businesses that do not have access to fibre broadband from Openreach today. The first areas to benefit include parts of Bath, Bradford, Bristol, Liverpool, Manchester and Salford - as well as Westminster, Holborn and the City – in London.
The new network will be rolled out over the course of the next nine months, with communications providers expected to be able to offer ultrafast speeds to businesses from the end of December. While more than 300,000 homes and businesses already have access to Openreach’s FTTP network, hundreds of thousands more are expected to be connected as the company continues to expand its service and as it ramps up top speeds from 330Mbps to 1Gbps on the network.
Clive Selley, CEO of Openreach
Our aim is to make ultrafast broadband available to 12 million homes and businesses by the end of 2020. SMEs have told us they want an alternative to dedicated lines and that is what we are going to give them.
