BT said Openreach’s fibre network has passed the 25 million premises mark, as it revealed an enterprise contract win with freight forwarding and logistics company Panalpina.
The operator claimed availability of fibre broadband was double that of France, while take up is 50 percent higher than in Germany, double that of Spain and 12 times that of Italy.
Having begun the roll out of the technology back in 2009, it added that it had “accepted” a double-digit year payback on a multi-billion pound investment.
According to BT’s latest financials, around 5.5 million homes and businesses are connected to Openreach’s fibre broadband network, representing 22 percent of premises passed.
Openreach avoided being structurally separated from the rest of BT after Ofcom concluded its Strategic Review of Digital Communications in February.
However, it has been forced to open up its network to rivals and last month unveiled plans to increase its FTTH footprint.
Ofcom has also since added new stipulations on installation times and wholesale prices.
Openreach CEO Clive Selley said: “The UK is making great progress with fibre broadband.
“Availability and take up are well ahead of most European countries and I’d like to thank the thousands of Openreach engineers who have worked so tirelessly to make this happen.
“The job isn’t finished however and we are working hard to get coverage to 95 per cent and above. We are also exploring how we can improve speeds for the million or so premises in the final few per cent of the country.”
Meanwhile, BT’s enterprise arm revealed it had won a deal with freight forwarding and logistics company Panalpina.
BT Global Services will overhaul Panalpina’s network infrastructure, currently sourced from more than a dozen domestic and regional providers, and migrate it into a single integrated platform, connecting 500 offices in more than 75 countries.
It will also provide services from its BT One Voice portfolio, to converge voice and data on a single platform.
Panalpina CIO Ralf Morawietz said: “As our single point of contact for communication services, BT will take away the burden of managing a multitude of different suppliers, and will make it easier for us to implement new services and to support our employees and customers around the globe.”
Source: http://www.eurocomms.com/industry-news/11490-bt-announces-fibre-milestone-wins-panalpina-comms-deal