BT chief hints at fibre rollout

BT is seriously considering a rollout of high-speed fibre connectivity across the country, according to the company's outgoing chairman.

Sir Christopher Bland, who relinquishes his role at BT in September, said on Wednesday that BT could opt for a deployment of what is known as "fibre to the kerb", or "fibre to the cabinet". This refers to optical fibre being laid out between BT's exchanges and the street cabinets to which individual premises are connected, a halfway measure also known as VDSL2 (very high-speed digital subscriber line 2).

Such a rollout would mean faster connectivity for users than that provided by the existing all-copper connections between premises and exchanges but not as fast as that promised by "fibre to the home" (FTTH).

More than a million subscribers across Europe are already enjoying the speeds offered by FTTH, research showed earlier this year. FTTH can offer real-world speeds of as much as 50Mbps, while BT's forthcoming, copper-based ADSL2+ technology will only offer a theoretical maximum of 24Mbps (analysts expect much lower real-world speeds).

Speaking to the Financial Times, Bland referred to fibre to the cabinet as the "more likely development going forward" but stopped short of declaring that a decision had been made on the subject. According to the Financial Times, he also expressed doubt that anyone other than businesses would need fibre access.

A BT spokesperson confirmed on Thursday that the company remains open to the possibility of fibre to the cabinet but reiterated the previously expressed standpoint that "it needs to make sense for our shareholders if [BT is] going to invest lots of money in it".

David Meyer writes for ZDNet UK