BT will bring ADSL2+ service to additional 2.5M homes, businesses

BT (NYSE: BT) will expand its up to 20 Mbps speed ADSL2+ to about 2.5 million homes and businesses, or 90 percent of the UK population by 2013, up from the 80 percent of homes it originally planned.

Having already upgraded telephone exchanges that serve over 17.6 million premises, BT will upgrade an additional 800 telephone exchanges to reach its new broadband expansion goal. Part of this new initiative focuses on extending broadband to more rural areas, meaning that BT will also upgrade over 400 Central Offices (CO), or telephone exchanges, that serve more than 900,000 rural homes and businesses.

"This is a significant expansion of our rollout plan and is further proof of our commitment to serve rural areas," said Alex Pannell, BT's director of product management.

The service provider said that it has "invested significant amounts" to install DSLAM equipment to support DSL just about 5,500 of its UK area COs.

Unfortunately, BT is the only broadband game in town for many rural dwellers. However, that scenario will change when competitive broadband provider TalkTalk (LSE: TALK) completes its own ADSL2+ LLU expansion from 80 percent to reach "nearly 90 percent of the population" sometime in 2012.July 29, 2011 — 8:31am ET | By Sean Buckley

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