BT announces first two sites for fibre-to-the-cabinet pilots

October 13, 2008 - BT's local access network division Openreach has announced that two exchanges in Muswell Hill (London) and Whitchurch (South Glamorgan) will host its first operational pilots for fibre-to-the-cabinet services in the UK, which will begin in summer 2009.

The FTTC pilots will involve up to 15,000 customer premises for each area, with end users experiencing speeds of up to 40 Mbps. The trials will follow a planned technical trial in the Foxhall exchange area of Kesgrave (Suffolk) in early 2009, and the successful launch of its fibre-to-the-premises service at Ebbsfleet Valley in Kent earlier this year.

David Campbell, Openreach’s Director of Next Generation Access, commented: “We are delighted to announce Whitchurch, South Glamorgan and Muswell Hill exchanges as the first sites chosen to pilot our fibre-to-the-cabinet product. Services in these areas will be available to all UK communication providers on a wholesale basis. We have a good mix of areas, allowing us to test our products in both urban and semi-rural environments. These two sites were chosen from a shortlist and we expect to announce detailed plans for the initial market deployment of the Openreach product in early 2010, again following consultation with all interested parties.”