Following months of anticipation the country's fastest broadband has arrived in St Austell which will enable downloads of a two-hour movie in just 90 seconds.
More than 3,000 homes and businesses in and around the town are set to benefit from the new ultrafast service, known as G.fast, which provides download speeds of up to 330Mbps – more than 10 times the UK average.
The faster speeds that ultrafast broadband brings means a two-hour HD film can be downloaded in just 90 seconds, a 45-minute HD TV show in just 16 seconds and a nine-hour audio book in just three seconds.
The areas to benefit from the G.fast pilot include parts of the wards of St Austell Bay, Bethel, Gover, Poltair, Mount Charles, St Mewan and Penwithick and Boscoppa.
People living in the pilot areas who want to try the new service can contact their internet service provider to see if they're offering it.
Heidi Moore who lives in Gover Road became the first customer in Cornwall to benefit from the ultrafast broadband roll out.
Heidi signed up to be part of the St Austell trial via her service provider, BT Consumer.
Heidi suffers from ME, which means she is often housebound, so staying in touch with friends and family as well as being able to use services such as online shopping are really important to her.
“I’ve got ME, which has knocked the stuffing out of me and knocked me off my feet a bit. You can only play each day as it comes. I use Facebook to stay in touch with friends and family and obviously online shopping is really important as sometimes I can’t get out and about.”
Heidi now enjoys download speeds of more than 320 Megabits per second. When her three grown-up foster sons visit she really notices the difference ultrafast has made.
She said: “Before, whenever all four of us were in the house together, I could be doing my shopping online, someone might be on WhatsApp, someone else was on Facebook or YouTube, Instagram, you name it – they could be on anything, so sometimes we’d notice a slight slowing. Now we are able to run more devices without losing any speed.
“Even on catch-up TV, if I download a programme, if it was an hour programme – before, it used to take a minute or two, now I find - 40 seconds - boomf, done!”
Kim Mears, Openreach managing director for infrastructure delivery, said: “It’s great to see the first customers being switched on and already reaping the benefits.
The UK is ahead of its major European neighbours when it comes to superfast broadband, but technology never stands still – that’s why we’re building on our existing fibre network and leading the way in deploying ultrafast speeds.
“We need to stay ahead in order to meet the evolving needs of our customers. G.fast will allow us to do that by building on the investment we have made in fibre to date. It will transform the UK broadband landscape from superfast to ultrafast, and it will reach the largest number of people in the quickest possible time.”
Pete Oliver, managing director of BT Consumer, said: “G.fast will help our customers to do everything they want to online with plenty of capacity for their future needs.
“Whether it’s streaming movies on BT TV or watching BT Sport in ultra HD, faster broadband is essential for our customers’ lives.”
The initiative is said to build on the success of the Superfast Cornwall partnership’s roll out of fibre broadband, which has already made fibre broadband available to about 238,000 Cornish households and businesses.
The new network is available on an open wholesale basis to all internet service providers, meaning that households and businesses will benefit from a choice of services, competitive pricing and products.
Source: http://www.cornwalllive.com/news/cornwall-news/fastest-broadband-speeds-country-launched-637377