BT announced today. Bembridge and Wootton Bridge are the latest communities on the Isle of Wight to benefit from the roll-out of BT’s next generation broadband service delivered over copper lines.
The BT investment makes available download speeds of up to 20 megabits per second (Mbps) – more than double the speed previously available from BT.
It is already available in Freshwater, Newport, Cowes, Ryde, Sandown and Shanklin.
The new service is available on an open, wholesale basis to all companies providing broadband*.
John Weaver, BT’s South East regional director, said: “This is an important step forward for the Isle of Wight. In these challenging economic times, faster broadband can help businesses become more competitive, find new customers and work more flexibly as well as greatly improving the online services available to families, homeworkers and other internet users.
“By the Summer, around 86 per cent of the region’s homes and businesses will be served by an exchange that has been upgraded to deliver these higher speeds.”
David Pugh, Isle of Wight Council leader, said: “This is more great news for the future of broadband services on the Isle of Wight. It follows on from BT recently announcing improvements in some of our main towns and the council proposals to work with the private sector to ensure better broadband services are available across all parts of the Island.
“We look forward to hearing more from BT about any proposals for other towns and villages on the Isle of Wight to benefit from improved broadband services.”
This investment in the copper network is in addition to BT’s £2.5 billion roll-out of fibre-based broadband, which will bring even faster speeds to around two-thirds of UK premises by the end of 2014.
John Weaver added: “BT is also keen to work with the public sector to explore ways of bringing faster broadband to other areas which are geographically and commercially more challenging.”
*Once an exchange area has been upgraded for next generation broadband, some service providers automatically upgrade their customers to the enhanced broadband service. People should contact their chosen service provider for more information about the products and services they offer.
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