BT announces gigabit home broadband service

BT has announced that it will be launching a new gigabit home broadband service later this month. The service, which is part of the company’s new range of next-generation Full Fibre plans, is said to bring the most reliable home broadband to consumers across the UK, as well as average speeds up to 25 times faster than BT’s superfast fibre broadband.

Starting later this March, BT aims to make its gigabit home broadband available in over two million households across the country. The rollout will begin with major cities such as Birmingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Leeds and London; the provider hopes to have the broadband available to half of UK homes by the end of 2025.

The new service is aimed at providing fast broadband for busy households in which there are multiple online devices on the go during peak times, enabling them also to make the most of high-bandwidth products such as 8K video, online gaming and smart home devices.

BT have said that their Full Fibre service will be a “perfect accompaniment” to their range of flexible TV packages, allowing customers to choose what they want to watch, where they want to watch it.

BT is not the only provider to offer fast, widespread fibre broadband across the UK. Last September, Virgin Media began rolling out their own gigabit home broadband service, Gig1 Fibre, alongside its next-generation Hub 4 router. Aiming to connect 15 million homes across the country by 2021, their total broadband base now stands at 5,271,000 premises having reached areas such as Southampton, Reading and Greater Manchester.

With Virgin calling Gig1 the UK’s “fastest home broadband” – boasting speeds 20 times faster than the average UK broadband download speed – BT could be facing difficult competition.

Further information on BT’s Full Fibre service, including pricing and availability, is to be made in the coming weeks. Customers can register their interest now at www.bt.com/full-fibre-interest.