What BT assigns Ultrafast broadband will be deployed to a minimum of 10m homes and businesses in the same period,‘ subject to regulatory support’, with an ambition to reach 12m. There will be an increased focus on Fibre to the Premises( FTTP) technology within this plan with the aim being to reach 2m premises with the technology, mainly in new housing developments, high streets and business parks.

BT CEO Gavin Patterson said:“ The UK is a digital leader today and it is vital that it remains one in the future. That is why we are announcing a further six billion pounds of investment in our UK networks, subject to regulatory certainty. Networks require money and a lot of it. Virgin and BT have both pledged to invest and we will now see if others follow our lead. Infrastructure competition is good for the UK and so is the current Openreach model

“ The UK is a digital leader today and it is vital that it remains one in the future.

whereby others can piggyback on our investment should they want to.”

“ G. fast is an important technology that will enable us to deploy ultrafast broadband at pace and to as many homes as possible. Customers want their broadband to be affordable as well as fast and we will be able to do that using G. fast. FTTP will also play a bigger role going forward and I believe it is particularly well suited to those businesses who may need speeds of up to 1Gbps. My ambition is to roll it out to two million premises and our trials give me confidence we will.”

EE meanwhile has said that it will extend its geographic 4G footprint from around 60 % today to 95 % by 2020. These parallel plans will ensure the UK is one of the best served countries in the world when it comes to superfast fixed and mobile services. Ultrafast broadband will be a major area of focus for Openreach which has an ambition to reach 12m premises with ultrafast services by 2020, two million more than previously announced. The business has the largest FTTP network in the UK and it has been conducting further trials of this technology to prove it can reduce the cost of deployment, improve the customer experience and make it quicker to install. The trials are going well and the business believes it may be able to pass 2m premises with this technology by 2020 helping to take overall ultrafast availability to 12m.

Whilst some consumers will receive their ultrafast broadband via FTTP, most will receive it via G. fast, a technology‘ which transforms the speeds customers can receive over a mix of fibre and copper.’ Customers taking part in the trials are currently receiving speeds of up to 300Mbps and these will reach up to 500Mbps in the next few years as the technology is deployed. Laboratory tests of XG-FAST, a future variant, have also shown that speeds of more than 5Gbps are possible over short copper lines demonstrating that copper has a role to play for many years yet.

Andrew Griffith, group chief operating officer and chief financial officer at Sky – a vociferous critic of BT’ s broadband policies – said that the announcement showed that BT continued to see copper as the basis of its network for 21st century Britain.“ Despite BT’ s claims, it is clearer than ever that their plans for fibre to the premise( FTTP) broadband will bypass almost every existing UK home. This limited ambition has been dragged out of BT by the threat of regulatory action, demonstrating once again why an independent Openreach, free to raise its own long-term capital, is the best way for the UK to get the fibre network it needs.”