BT 8Mbps ADSL

BT press release
DC05-678 14 October, 2005
BT announces plans for higher speed Broadband nationwide

BT today announced the next trial phase for its ADSL broadband Max service, which will deliver downstream line speeds of up to 8 Mbit/s. Commencing at the end of November, the trial will lay the foundation for the intended commercial launch of higher speed broadband services across the UK by Spring 2006.


Cameron Rejali, managing director, products and strategy, BT Wholesale said: “The market trial represents a significant step forward in the development of our higher speed broadband products. Our highly successful technical trials generated positive feedback and high demand from both service providers and end-customers involved in the trial.


“This trial phase is essential to ensure our higher speed broadband products and systems meet the reliability standards that service providers and end users expect. This testing is essential given BT intends to roll out services of up to 8Mb across the whole of the UK. BT is committed to ensuring that everyone benefits from the broadband revolution whether they live in valleys, villages or city centres.”


Higher speed broadband services will allow people to run more bandwidth hungry applications, including video, gaming and music downloads at the same time, as well as email and surfing the web.


Following successful technical trials of the service in London and the Strathclyde region of Scotland, the wider market trial phase will include an initial 25 exchanges, rising to 53 exchanges as the trial progresses. The selected trial exchanges will be located in Greater London, Cornwall, Strathclyde, Northern Ireland and South Glamorgan.


The higher speed broadband trial will initially be available to 50,000 end users. Depending on the successful progress of the trial, BT aims to extend the availability of the trial to up to 150,000 end users, which could see additional trial exchanges enabled for higher speed broadband.


The trial will allow participating service providers to offer end-customers the fastest broadband service their line can reliably support with rate-adaptive downstream line speeds of up to 8 Mbit/s. BT intends to provide these services
nationwide from all broadband enabled exchanges in the UK following the successful conclusion of the trials.


The market trial will apply to BT Wholesale’s BT Datastream service and BT IPstream service, provided the customer is on either capacity or usage based charging. The purpose of the market trial is to allow BT Wholesale and participating service providers to understand the technical stability of ADSL Max lines and become familiarised with the ordering, billing and service aspects of the service prior to commercial launch.


Service providers will shortly be invited by BT Wholesale to formally take part in the trial. Individual customer lines for the trial will be selected by service providers and the standard procedure for ordering ADSL broadband services from BT Wholesale will apply.


Higher speed broadband from BT Wholesale will deliver greater control and flexibility to service providers which will allow them to differentiate their products to reduce customer churn and attract new broadband subscribers.



Notes to editors



1. The 25 initial trial exchanges are:

Strathclyde
Connel
Dalmally
East Kilbride
Glasgow
Cambuslang
Greengairs
Helensburgh
Kimarnock
Langside
Lochgoilhead
Ochiltree


Northern Ireland
Bangor Belfast Balmoral
Belfast City

South Glamorgan
Llandaff
Llanishen
Radyr Glam Rhoose


Greater London
Chiswick
Earls Court
Harlesden
Harrow
Kensington Gardens
South Kensington
West Kensington


Cornwall
St Ives





Trial name*See note 2.


Upstream line speed range
(Rate adaptive)


Downstream line speed range
(Rate adaptive) *See note 3.

BT Datastream Home Max


64Kbit/s - 448Kbit/s


288Kbit/s – 8128Mbit/s

BT Datastream Office Max


64Kbit/s - 832Kbit/s


288Kbit/s – 8128Mbit/s

BT IPstream Home Max


64Kbit/s - 448Kbit/s


288Kbit/s – 8128Mbit/s

BT IPstream Office Max


64Kbit/s - 832Kbit/s


288Kbit/s – 8128Mbit/s



2. These product names may be subject to change for any launched service.

3. The speeds in the table are indicative of the actual ADSL line code rate.

4. BT expects that BT Datastream Office Max and BT IPstream Home Max will be available from the start of the trial, with BT Datastream Home Max and BT IPstream Office Max being introduced later in the trial.

5. While existing ADSL technology will be used to provide rate-adaptive downstream line speeds ranging from 288 Kbit/s to 8 Mbit/s, BT Wholesale is currently conducting internal technical trials using ADSL2 + technology as well as evaluating VDSL technology and aims to deliver downstream speeds of up to 24 Mbit/s +. BT Wholesale aims to announce its plans to conduct wider tests for ADSL2+ and VDSL in 2006.




BT ready to roll with 8Mbps ADSL
Colin Barker
ZDNet UK
October 13, 2005, 18:25 BST

After halting SDSL rollout, BT is ready to trial a faster flavour of broadband


BT had set a launch date of November for the trials of its 8Mbps ADSL broadband Max service, with a full roll-out expected in spring 2006.

The launch of this faster broadband is key for BT as it recovers from the failure of SDSL to capture a large market.

The announcement comes after what Cameron Rejali, managing director, products and strategy for BT Wholesale, described as "highly successful" technical trials which generated positive feedback and high demand from both service providers and end-customers involved in the trial.

BT has already conducted trials of the service in London and Strathclyde. The wider market trial phase will include an initial 25 exchanges, rising to 53 exchanges as the trial progresses. The selected trial exchanges will be located in Greater London, Cornwall, Strathclyde, Northern Ireland and South Glamorgan.

BT will initially run the trial with 50,000 end users and, "depending on the successful progress of the trial", aims to get 150,000 end users signed up.

Source here