Telecoms giant BT is going to inject a further £1 billion into the development of a nationwide superfast broadband network.

The new money will go towards providing two thirds of the UK with superfast broadband access by the end of 2015.

In the past BT has said that it hopes to be able to get fibre optic broadband rolled out for 40 per cent of the UK in time for 2012 and the Olympic Games in London. Its minimum download speed target for these connections was set at 40Mbps, which is currently the maximum which its tiny number of fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) customers can achieve.

Before 2010 ends BT will bring the first four million customers the opportunity to access its next generation high speed broadband network and with the additional funds it will be able to extend the reach of its fibre optic cabling to even more households.

BT recently announced that its financial performance was finally on the up, with profits of £1 billion recently posted. This was after serious losses in the previous year, which resulted in job losses, cost cutting and general streamlining of its entire business.

The luckiest BT broadband customers will have full fibre coverage delivered right into their homes, with download speeds of 100Mbps possible. The majority will be FTTC customers, but this is still a technology which vastly outpaces current ADSL connections.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard said “The current range of BT broadband deals are about to get a lot more interesting as it commits to this large investment into next-generation technology. Experts agree that fibre optic broadband is the only service which can continue to further the possibility of online entertainment and information and so BT’s funding of this will be welcomed.”

Residents in and around Birmingham and the West Midlands are waiting to see which location in their region will be chosen to be the proving ground for 100Mbps superfast broadband.

High speed internet connectivity is being promoted as an essential asset in the area and one which will encourage regeneration and bring economic growth and stability along with it.

Campaigners are hoping that three different areas will be chosen in the 100Mbps trials, although in all likelihood it will be urban Birmingham that feels the benefits before more isolated locations.

A group of local businesses is campaigning for faster broadband in the region, hoping to aid the progress of the roll-out by costing the installation and upkeep itself in order to attract investment from big telecoms firms.

Hopeful locals will have to wait until early June to find out how the investigations and preliminary tests are progressing.

Campaigners believe that the growth of superfast broadband will allow more people to work from home, which will encourage small businesses and entrepreneurs to stay locally and boost the economy.

Broadband activist and businessman Glyn Pickford told the Birmingham Post that consumers and businesses would benefit from faster broadband in the West Midlands. Mr Pickford also stressed that big business would benefit from 100Mbps broadband and that regeneration is reliant upon its availability.

It is believed that members of the public will need to be educated as to the benefits of superfast broadband and new BT broadband options using fibre technology, as many are aware that it is coming but unsure as to how it will impact upon their daily lives.

Simple Broadband’s Simon Gerrard added “It is great to see regions around the UK campaigning for faster broadband and seeing their wishes come true. A stream of new initiatives and ever more diverse BT broadband options prove that 100Mbps broadband is a nationwide issue.”

Business and home broadband customers will be pleased to learn that BT has announced various locations that will be benefiting from a fibre optic broadband upgrade in the next few months.

Its BT Infinity service, which uses fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology has so far been available in limited areas of the UK, but now BT says that an additional four million business and home users will be able to enjoy download speeds of up to 40Mbps.

A BT spokesperson said that the telecoms giant is committed to bringing 40 per cent of the UK population some form of fibre optic broadband by 2012 and now it has announced that customers in London, the Midlands, Yorkshire and East Anglia will be some of the first to experience the speed boost.

BT will not be the only broadband provider offering fibre optic services as part of the new upgrades, as it will also be selling on its service to ISPs in order to generate competition and variety. This will be welcomed by business broadband customers who may not be convinced by the current BT Infinity tariffs.

More than 300 local telephone exchanges are being upgraded as part of the new initiative and around 190 of these will be located in the south and east of the UK. The North West will see 30 exchanges upgraded and the Midlands is getting around 40 fibre-ready exchanges.

BT hopes to complete the work by the middle of next year, although some have said that the concentration of the exchanges in the south implies that the digital divide is getting wider.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard said “Businesses can really benefit from high speed access, not only for their own premises, but also within the local community, as the internet will become an ever more effective tool for sourcing custom locally.”

The budget delivered by Alistair Darling last week was extremely important for businesses looking to ensure their future prosperity as the promise of universal high speed broadband was essentially pledged.

The new 50p Broadband Tax has been confirmed and this comes almost simultaneously with the new Building Britain’s Digital Future initiative, in which prime minister Gordon Brown committed to getting high speed broadband to 100 per cent of the population in the next decade. Business leaders can only hope that future governments are able to live up to this promise.

Thankfully it looks as though most businesses are being backed by local and national plans to help bring broadband to as many people as possible, but for many there is little clear idea as to what kind of timescale they will be looking at before the promise of universal high speed broadband becomes a reality.

At the moment, the 2017 deadline for 90 per cent high speed broadband coverage is looking attainable, but there are no official figures relating to how much the public or private purse will have to pay in order to ensure that the final 10 per cent is not left floating in the wind.

The nations that currently top the charts in terms of high speed broadband availability, including Korea and Japan, could only achieve market saturation with heavy investment from the authorities, which suggests that relying entirely on the private sector for the cash is not going to work in Britain.

It is believed that if high speed BT business broadband packages become widely available within the next decade, working from home will be far more common and the morning commute for those who do head into work will be less crowded as broadband enables more diverse working patterns.

The upcoming general election could be decided on the merits of the various parties’ broadband plans according to experts.

The Conservative party is attempting to avoid a hung parliament, but the issue of rural broadband availability might scupper its bid for leadership as voters in the more isolated regions could be left out under its current strategies.

Analyst firm Point Topic has pointed out that the Conservative heartland is traditionally located in rural communities and that members of these constituencies will be hit the hardest if the party is elected.

This conclusion has been reached because Labour’s proposed broadband tax is something that the Tories are planning to scrap. This tax would be used to fund the expansion of broadband to areas in which current coverage is limited and speeds are inadequate.

By opposing the tax, Tories could risk alienating their core supporters, leaving them in a rather difficult situation.

Researchers worked out that of the 253 constituencies which are currently suffering from minimal broadband availability, the Conservatives could end up in control of up to 138 after the election.

The Conservatives had planned on investment being sourced from within the telecoms industry, with backing from big business. If this was possible, the tax would become redundant, but it looks as though the necessary funds will require some public money to meet the figures necessary to provide truly universal broadband access.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager Simon Gerrard said “All political parties will be looking hard at the broadband market in order to assess the kinds of services that UK citizens will need over the coming decade. Broadband is an essential commodity in the eyes of many and those areas which cannot be serviced with BT broadband deals will not want to miss out.”

ISP Eclipse Internet has said that it will be allowing consumers to sign up for two new cheap cable broadband packages as of April 2010.

The deals will offer download speeds of up to 40Mbps, coupled with maximum upload speeds of 10Mbps and Eclipse is using the same fibre-to-the-cabinet (FTTC) technology that BT has introduced for its Infinity range.

FTTC is a hybrid of ADSL and fibre optic technology, with the telephone cabinets in residential streets connected via underground cable, whilst consumer properties will still use copper wiring for the final connection.

For the time being, Eclipse will be packaging its FTTC services in order to appeal to business customers, although there is a high possibility that retail consumers will be able to take advantage of the bundles at a lower price point in the future.

Eclipse’s director Clodagh Murphy said that his firm was taking steps to bring next generation broadband technology to as many of its customers as possible. Mr Murphy said that business customers would be able to run VoIP and video conferencing services with ease and also suggested that setting up VPN connectivity for remote working would be possible for smaller businesses.

The two packages on offer, Eclipse Fibre and Eclipse Fibre Pro, will both have a maximum download speed of 40Mbps, although the Pro version will have a 10Mbps maximum upload speeds as opposed to the 2Mbps offered with the cheaper deal.

There will be an installation fee of £75 to cover, but Eclipse is going out on a limb and guaranteeing its customers a minimum download speed of 12Mbps, which is refreshing.

Simple Broadband’s Communication Manager Simon Gerrard commented “Eclipse Internet is offering a compelling reason to compare business broadband packages, particularly if an enterprise is being restricted by the speed of its current connection.”

Virgin Media is believed to be in the process of rethinking its marketing strategies in order to reach a wider audience and to encourage more people to look at its high speed fibre optic broadband deals rather than focusing on BT broadband options instead.

Advertising industry experts at Marketing Week revealed that Virgin Media has talked to the firms that run its many different campaigns and has challenged them to create a new selection of marketing options in order to bolster the public profile of cable broadband.

Broadening the appeal of broadband and making people more aware of the differences between ADSL and cable connections is a sensible idea, particularly now that BT is offering its own Infinity service, which some might assume is essentially the same as the Virgin Media offering, although this is not, in fact, the case.

Along with new ad campaigns, Virgin Media is also likely to overhaul its current line up of broadband deals, although how it will go about this remains unknown. It could well choose to focus on bringing 50Mbps deals down in price, making them more attractive to a wider audience, as the benefits of high download speeds and more consistent connections are key that Virgin Media is slightly underplaying compared to its rivals.

Virgin Media continues to innovate in its offering of broadband bundles that include home phone, digital TV and even mobile service provision along with cable connectivity. Perhaps it will focus on communicating just how convenient this type of bundle offering can be, particularly if value for money is of greater concern than download speeds and monthly data allowances to consumers.

Simple Broadband’s Simon Gerrard said “Virgin Media has always created some interesting advertisements, but perhaps it should take a leaf from Virgin Airlines and follow the classic mantra of ’sex sells’ to drag consumers away from BT broadband options.”

A new move by BT, which will see it allowing third party providers access to its network of underground tunnels, could mean that cheap cable broadband from rivals will be on the way.

Fibre optic broadband is set to be the most common form of connection over the coming years as it allows for much faster download speeds than older ADSL technology using copper telephone wiring.

Firms such as TalkTalk have expressed interest in taking advantage of BT’s offer, which will allow them to lay their own high speed networks underground using existing conduits rather than having to spend millions digging their own.

Sky said that the idea of the open access was appealing, although admitted that at this time it had no interest in setting up a cable network of its own.

BT has been partly pushed into the move after it came under pressure from politicians and other industry groups to make the broadband infrastructure of the UK more open to competition. Obviously there is the potential for BT’s Wholesale division, which resells its current networks to third party providers, to lose out in the new plans, but for the consumer it is likely to be a catalyst in the availability of cheap cable broadband across a wider area.

BT will be putting one and a half billion pounds into its own fibre optic network and it will then be able to sell this on to Sky and others in the future. Some believe that the plans laid out by BT are relatively risky, although in general the move has been regarded with optimism.

Simple Broadband’s Communication Manager Simon Gerrard added “Consumers who are crossing their fingers for fibre optic broadband in their area should consider BT’s plans a very positive step indeed. Competition in the cable market can only mean lower prices and higher speeds in the long run.”

The next general election is due to take place in 2010, with rumours suggesting that it may occur at some point in May. As a result, politicians from all parties are beginning to make promises in an attempt to win votes and the Conservatives have recently announced that they plan to implement fibre optic broadband across the UK by 2017, with download speeds of 100Mbps accessible to a majority of consumers.

George Osborne, who is currently the shadow chancellor, said that his party would use the BBC licence fee to fund the continued growth of fibre optic broadband if it was voted into power. Mr Osborne also said that his party would push for offering fibre optic broadband in remote areas, relying on both private and public funding to ensure that the targets were met.

Mr Osborne compared the roll out of fibre optic broadband to the building of the railways when speaking in an interview on the Andrew Marr show. He said that hundreds of thousands of jobs would be created by better connectivity options, in the same way that the economy grew as a result of rail transport in the 19th century.

A spokesperson for Labour said that the Conservatives were not really proposing anything new with their announcements, but rather affirming their commitment to the government’s existing plans to make 2017 the deadline for universal high speed broadband connectivity. The Lib Dems also raised questions, but were concerned as to how the project would be funded.

Simple Broadband’s Communications Manager, Simon Gerrard, added that “whatever your political allegiances, it is definitely a positive step forward, showing that all of the parties are committed to extending high speed broadband across the UK, expanding upon current BT broadband options.”

After announcing the availability of its first fibre optic broadband connections for the consumer market, BT has said that its business arm will also be encouraging UK enterprises to switch to the high speed internet technology with a new package tailored to their specific requirements.

Although the business package will use the same fibre optic connections that will offer 40Mbps download speeds and 10Mbps upload speeds, businesses will be able to have their data traffic prioritised over home users during periods of peak use.

A fibre optic broadband connection will enable businesses to run advanced VoIP services and allow for video streaming and high quality conferencing. The growth of cloud computing for storage, backup and remote networking will also be facilitated by the new package.

The poor weather at the beginning of the year meant that many were stranded at home without any means of continuing to work, but with fibre optic broadband, businesses will be able to roll out a home working scheme as part of their continuity planning.

Nigel Stagg, Managing Director of BT’s business division, said that although over 50 per cent of businesses are currently enjoying the benefits of high speed broadband, BT is looking to expand its fibre networks so that every single enterprise and organisation in the UK has the opportunity to connect faster and do more.

When you compare business broadband packages you will now be able to take into account the four new BT bundles that make use of fibre optic technology. Simple Broadband’s Communication Manager Simon Gerrard said that “Upgrading to the latest broadband technology will be imperative for many businesses in the UK and BT’s new deals highlight just how far things have come and indeed how far they are set to go.”