BT testing 800Mbps broadband over fiber to the curb, copper to the home

BT has conducted field trials that show it can deliver broadband download speeds of nearly 800Mbps using fiber and copper.

The technology delivers data over fiber from the British telecom's facilities to neighborhoods while using copper for the final meters. Deployments of this sort are less expensive than fiber-to-the-home because they reuse existing copper lines used for telephone service and DSL. Speeds over copper degrade over distance, but BT said it was able to achieve 786Mbps download speeds over 19 meters and 696Mbps download speeds over 66 meters. Fiber and copper deployments can end up sending data over copper for much longer distances, further lowering speed, but BT said that 66 meters and below "encompasses around 80 percent of such connections." It's not clear whether the 80 percent figure refers to BT's existing network, the field trial area, or future deployment plans. We've asked the company to clarify.