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BT admits to falling well below its fibre broadband target

At one point in time, BT claimed that it would deliver fibre to the premises (FTTP) broadband to a quarter of the UK, this obviously hasn't happened yet, causing the company to drop its original FTTP target. Since then, BT has been focusing on bringing speed bumps to the slower fibre to the cabinet lines (FTTC), which use both fibre and copper cables.

Responding to a complaint made to the Advertising Standards Authority, BT has confirmed that only 0.7 per cent of UK residents can get a fully fibre broadband connection, falling well below the original 25 per cent target. The complaint was made by customers who noticed that BT's description of copper-infused lines as ‘fibre optic' might actually be a bit misleading.

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Ultimately, the Advertising Standards Authority ruled that BT's description wasn't misleading and the company will continue to advertise copper-infused FTTC broadband as fibre optic. However, complaints like this do show that there are people out there expecting BT to do more to upgrade its infrastructure, especially since rivals like Virgin can already offer up to 152Mb speeds and Sky is planning a 100Mb speed upgrade in conjuntion with Talk Talk.

BT recently managed to double its copper speeds to 80Mbps but the competition is swiftly over-taking.

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KitGuru Says: There are still plenty of areas in the UK that could do with infrastructure upgrades to deliver greater speeds. Technology is evolving and people are going to need some pretty decent internet connections if they want to start streaming 4K content, or even just start downloading the new influx of 40GB+ games on Steam or console. What providers are you guys using? Are you getting decent speeds?

Source: PC Pro

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9 comments

  1. Really finding it a struggle with my connection now – I have so many games sitting un-downloaded in steam PS store that I do not even buy games any more – Even patching games is a nightmare with only a max of 140kb down. My exchange was suppose to be upgraded this Autumn but it has not happened.

    I have basically had to keep my PC on for a week to get ready for WoD and I will be lucky to have it done by Friday night.

  2. I can’t even get FTTC with BT yet, even though I live in a city centre. I’m stuck on 15mb down, <1mb up. Best I can get

  3. With 10mbit on my phone, and 80/20 BT Infinity, I am not complaining too much… but I would still want (and willing to pay for) faster, if I could get it!

  4. I currently have BT ‘Fibre optic’ and its a massive disappointment on all fronts, Im paying almost double what I was paying for broadband and more often than not only getting 10Mb/s DL speed with my actual downloads capping at 2Mb/s. My Upload speed is consistently at ~20Mb/s but its just not good enough to advertise 80Mb/s (granted this is up to but I at least expected ~30Mb/s) and only deliver 10. At times this drops to below what I was receiving from my broadband connection, To make matters worse BT are the only service provider in the area that offer anything at ‘unlimited’ Use, so I have no alternative

  5. On Sky 40Mb/s down and 8 up package (for £25 p.m. including Sky HD+, phone and line rental), we get a rock solid 40Mb/s. I’ve never seen it drop below 39 download and 8 up, and the pin is never more than 15ms which is mostly due to our end – complex multiple router setup and long twisted copper rj11 line – even when my wife and I are both gaming and streaming, with the Sky downloading in the front room. Never had a speed drop never mind an outage with them. No traffic management whatsoever, and because we were with them last year (with another good deal), then we have no porn filter and haven’t been asked about it.

    Sure, we could get faster fibre, but definitely not for the price and with the extras, and from what I’ve seen and experienced our connection is more reliable than the vast majority of others.

  6. bt , I’m trapped with them , semi rural , no virgin cables here, BT is the only unlimited supplier I can use , speeds abysmal , the town 15 miles down the road has fibre and speeds 80 +, there is nothing on BT website to show me when it is coming to me , meaning we are not in their plans ….

  7. Was told BT would roll out here a year ago. No fibre in the area and 0.9 mbps, which means I spend a very long time downloading things as you can imagine.

  8. With BT, Semi-Rural 2.4 Mbit/s down 0.8 up paying well over what it should be

  9. Elder of the Internet

    Same situation here, I work for an ISP and am still only getting 6mbps down, does what it needs to, city centres round the UK will be the last place to get enabled (except maybe the outer Hebrides) as BTs mantra is a mix of, ‘lets get in the profitable areas first’ and ‘if we screw up the install in the city its more complaints than in a rural location’ – i listen to people complain everyday about the SpeedvsCost, nothing will change until legislation is brought in like in Sweden guaranteeing minimum broadband speeds – here in the UK its a mere ‘guideline’ of 2mbps minimum which is ‘up for review’ for 10mbps..