10Mb leased line uptake to grow with fibre expansions?

10Mb leased line uptake to grow with fibre expansions?

Uptake of 10Mb leased lines could be set to grow as the UK's broadband networks are due to be improved in the coming years.

Openreach has announced the latest phase in the nationwide plan to deliver super-fast broadband to the majority of the country. It has installed an additional 178 new exchanges in its fibre deployment programme, covering over 1.8 million homes and businesses around the country.

These exchanges are expected to be enabled next year and will contribute to faster internet access. By the end of 2014, the network hopes to have furnished two-thirds of UK premises with commercial fibre.

However, the final access points between an individual connection and the fibre network are still copper. If businesses want to ensure they have the fastest possible access to the new networks, they may want to look into 10Mb leased lines as an alternative.

Olivia Garfield, chief executive of Openreach, commented: “Super-fast broadband is already within reach of more than six million premises today and we are on track to pass 10 million premises next year.”

At the moment customers have access to speeds of up to 40Mbps, and these are expected to double over the course of the next year. Furthermore, businesses might be interested to learn that speeds of up to 300Mbps could be installed in certain areas.

However, in the long-run, Openreach predicts that, with the help of government funding, fibre broadband with speeds of around 100Mbps could be accessible by more than 90 per cent of the UK within five or six years.

This is thanks to technical innovation and the higher priority among both public and private investors when it comes to boosting the country's internet services.