Revolutionising the way you use the internet
People have been banging on for ages about broadband changing the way we live, work and play. And it has. Now we can do the weekly shopping from the kitchen table, watch Hollywood blockbusters and download new songs whenever we want, and share photos or play games with friends all over the world. We can even use it to work, occasionally...
But with all of this information shooting back and forth across the world, the lines carrying it are groaning under the strain. The current network was never designed to cope with so much traffic.
At Openreach, it's our job to look after the UK's communications network. We do this for our customers, the communications providers (CPs), who supply phone, broadband and even TV services to homes and businesses.
Right now we're upgrading the network, by laying fibre optic cables over the current copper lines. We're using £2.5 billion committed by BT Group to make superfast fibre broadband available to two-thirds of the homes in Britain by end Spring 2014.
Fibre can carry massive amounts of information over much longer distances than copper – and much faster too. In speed terms, you're talking downloads of up to 300Mbit/s and uploads of up to 30Mbit/s. And that's just the start. It won't be long until people are demanding even faster speeds and we're already testing a 1Gbit/s fibre service.
But it's not just about doing the same things a bit quicker. Superfast fibre broadband means everyone being able to do what they want online, all at the same time. It's a whole new ball game – and we've only just scratched the surface of what fibre can do.