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Gigabit Ethernet to the home in four years? - BT announces FTTP

BT has upped the stakes in the game being played by "mobile broadband" services, by promising fibre to the home for ten million UK households, by 2012. This will give 100 megabit broadband to domestic users, and may offer gigabit Ethernet to some.

Today's press release promises the spending of £1.5 billion on the rollout of "Super-Fast Broadband" based on fibre. And it promises an Ofcom negotiation "to create a regulatory environment... necessary to enable this programme to progress."

The announcement quotes CEO Ian Livingston: "Broadband has boosted the UK economy, and is now an essential part of our customers' lives. We now want to make a step-change in broadband provision which will offer faster speeds than ever before. This marks the beginning of a new chapter in Britain's broadband story."

Livingstone went on to offer partner deals: "We are keen to partner with people who share our vision for the next phase of the broadband revolution. We want to work with local and regional bodies to decide where and when we should focus the deployment."

His aim, he said, was to ensure that rural areas would benefit as well as cities. To do this, says BT, the new regulatory structure was essential; the costs of rolling out fibre to the premise (FTTP) and fibre to the cabinet (FTTC) would be enormous, and those partnering with BT must have their investments protected.

The announcement will cause some consternation to the mobile phone companies, who are seeing a huge boom in mobile data services to portable PCs, using USB sticks.

Mobile broadband has been sold on the (rather dubious) premise that it is "as fast as ADSL" - a claim that is based on headline connection speeds. Actual data transport speeds are normally much lower than the theoretical maximum, even when there are no retries.

Mobile companies will now have to re-think their pricing plans. The attraction of a capped service which can cost thousands of Euros if you go over your limit for the month, becomes much reduced if alternatives are so much faster and so much cheaper. Hotspot provision over WiFi looks like an easier wireless option for urban areas.