Belfast in frontline of super-fast broadband expansion

Part of Belfast is to be given access to super-fast broadband on the BT network early next year, it was announced today.

Close to 30,000 customers in the Balmoral exchange area in the south of the city are among the first to benefit from the roll out of the new fibre-based network.

The area is among 29 exchanges across the UK and the North that have been selected for the first phase of what BT said was the largest ever investment in super-fast broadband in the UK.

The company said it would be installing fibre-based broadband in the exchange early next year as part of a £1.5bn (€1.6bn) project.

The ’fibre to the cabinet’ (FTTC) technology will offer initial speeds of up to 40Mb/s to nearly 30,000 households and businesses in the exchange area, with the prospect of speeds rising to 60Mb/s.

The speeds are more than 10 times those obtainable by most households in the country.

The next phase of the roll-out will be announced in the Autumn.

Chris Clark, BT chief executive said: “Super-fast broadband is essential to Northern Ireland’s future as a knowledge based economy so it is excellent to announce Balmoral exchange in this initial set of 29 locations.

“Once again, Northern Ireland is at the forefront of one of the most important projects to take place in recent years and this investment programme offers us the prospect of joining the world super league for broadband speeds.”

“The wider industry will now be able to plan ahead as we will be making our services available on a wholesale basis to other communications providers,” he added.

The initial speeds of up to 40Mb/s will give customers enough speed to run multiple bandwidth-hungry applications. For example, some members of a family could be watching different HD movies while others were gaming or working on complex graphics or video projects.

As well as being able to download graphics and data much more quickly, users will benefit from substantially improved “upstream” speeds of up to 10Mb/s - the highest in the UK. Customers will be able to post videos, experience hi-definition video conferencing and enjoy interactive hi-definition gaming to the full.

BT said the major investment in fibre formed part of its wider strategy of delivering next generation broadband services.

Frank McManus, head of wholesale services and sales at BT said: “Broadband has been a vital part of the success story of the North.

“Businesses are using it to boost their competitiveness and find new customers, while households are benefiting from new entertainment and educational opportunities.

“But we are still only at the start of a very fast journey – a journey in which super-fast broadband will play an ever more important role.”