Broadband roll out by 2014

TELECOMS giant BT said today it will be able to provide superfast broadband for two-thirds of the UK a year earlier than it previously predicted.

BT will bring forward £300 million of planned investment and take on an additional 520 engineers, which it hopes to recruit largely from ex-armed forces personnel, to achieve its target in 2014 instead of 2015.

The accelerated roll-out forms part of BT’s £2.5 billion programme to provide quicker broadband services across the UK. Six million UK premises already have access to the new super-fast technology, a figure that will rise to ten million next year.

The new fibre-optic cables support download speeds of up to 40 megabytes per second, which is fast enough to allow users to watch high definition television over the internet. They are substantially quicker than receiving the internet through BT’s traditional copper phone lines.