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BT will introduce faster broadband to around 90,000 homes and businesses in South West England, plus nearly 70,000 addresses in Wales next spring.
Approximately 15 communities including St Ives and Dawlish will get BT's 21st Century Network (21CN). BT said 56 percent of the South West region, which includes more than 1.2m homes and businesses will be upgraded within less than a year.
Almost 68,000 addresses will also benefit when BT extends its 21CN to cover nine communities in Wales. They include: the Roath and Llanedeyrn areas of Cardiff, Malpas and Bettws in Newport, along with Ebbw Vale, Kenfig Hill, Pencoed, Skewen and Wrexham North.
BT said the network will serve 42 percent of premises in the country with over 500,000 addresses receiving upgraded broadband. The company's project will make broadband speeds up to 20Mb/s available to most of the UK using existing copper lines.
Jon Reynolds, BT's South West regional director, said: "This latest major investment in next generation broadband represents a huge BT vote of confidence in the future of the South West. It will help ensure that businesses and households in the region are in a strong position to thrive. Faster broadband can help businesses become more competitive and greatly improve the on-line services available to households."
BT is also rolling out next generation fibre-based broadband in the UK, initially offering download speeds of up to 40 Mb/s, stepping up the competition between BT and Virgin Media to provide the fastest internet connections.
The company recently introduced the ‘super-fast' broadband in Fife, Scotland and has vowed to cover two thirds of the UK with fibre-based broadband by 2015 at a cost of around £2.5bn.
BT has called for more partnership-working to deliver the next generation service to more rural locations where it is not economically viable to include in its roll out plans.
Reynolds said: "We would like to work with partners to find ways of providing fibre-based broadband for those areas where the economics are more challenging. There are already a number of examples of this in the UK. Some are major multi million pounds projects, such as the partnership in Northern Ireland where BT has pledged to invest about £30 million, whilst others are much more local, such as the village project in Kent where £13,000 of public sector funding helped unlock BT investment of £62,000."
Ann Beynon, BT director for Wales, added: "The Welsh Assembly Government's recent announcements about a major procurement of next generation broadband services in the Spring of 2011 to complement the commercial roll out and the £1,000 end user subsidy scheme launched at the Royal Welsh Show demonstrate the commitment there is to bring the latest technology to business, communities and individuals in areas where there are significant economic challenges."
Currently Virgin is winning the competition to roll out the fastest broadband speeds and announced it will begin to deploy its 100 Mb/s service by the end of this year, offering more than double the speed of BT's best effort.
