BT planning to launch 1000Mbps broadband in 2016 or 2017
BT has announced plans to roll out its “G.Fast” broadband technology, which could see speeds rocket up to 1000Mbps – up from a maximum of about 80Mbps now.
According to ISP Review, the new service will be faster as it will replace the current “Fibre to the cabinet” technology – in that your connection is sent over a fibre optic line to the green box at the end of your street, before switching to copper wires to get into your house. The new “G.Fast” tech apparently works in a similar way, but because it uses a different set of transmission frequencies, it will only work with shorter distances to roadside cabinets.
Essentially what it means is that BT will probably have to dig up a lot of roads to make it work – but as the last stretch will still be over copper wire, as ISPR notes, it won’t have to dig up your garden.
Apparently the plan is for the G.Fast roll-out to be completed nationwide by 2020 – though if you’ve ever had to wait for fucking three weeks for BT to send an engineer out to make your internet connection work, we’ll forgive you if you’re a little cynical.