New broadband plan for UK

According to Ofcom, UK customers enjoy an average download speed of 4.6Mbps. Anyone who has logged on at 6pm on a weekday would probably laugh at that figure. With some customers several miles from the local exchange on old copper wire, and many sharing connections with up to 50 households linked to one streetside cabinet, such speeds, let alone the advertised 8Mbps, are the stuff of dreams. The UK has a high take-up of broadband - 58 per cent according to Gartner research - the same as France, and ahead of Germany (49 per cent), the US (54 per cent) and Japan (55 per cent), but behind South Korea at 93 per cent. But it is the speed of connection where the UK falls down the world league table. BT unveiled plans on Tuesday to roll out a new UK fixed-line network offering broadband speeds five times quicker than those currently available. The former fixed-line telephone monopoly, is to spend £1.5bn on a fibre-based network covering 10m homes that will mostly enable download speeds of 40 megabits per second, compared with the existing 8 Mbps industry benchmark. BT has been spurred into action by Virgin Media, the cable television company, which plans to offer speeds of up to 50 Mbps to 12m homes by next summer.