BT Ireland takes broadband speeds to new heights

BT deploys first commercial fibre to the premises connection and breaks new record for commercial fibre speeds for consumers on the island of Ireland.

BT today announced that it has deployed its first fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) broadband connection in Northern Ireland, delivering download speeds of up to 330 Mbps. a record breaking figure for commercial consumer speeds on the island of Ireland.

BT’s fibre broadband network is pre-dominantly delivered through fibre-to-the-cabinet technology, which provides superfast broadband by replacing a section of the copper network with high speed fibre optic cable.  FTTP takes this technology further by creating a direct line between the network and the home or business. The result is faster download speeds of up to 330 Mbps and upload speeds of 40 Mbps, which is the equivalent of downloading a feature length movie of 850MB in size in approximately 20 seconds.

Rowan Sheridan, a home-owner from Mullusk, on the outskirts of Belfast, was the first customer to be connected to the FTTP technology, which was deployed by BT under the Northern Ireland Broadband Improvement Project. Commenting on the experience he’s had since the connection was installed, Mr Sheridan, who was previously getting download speeds of 0.5 Mbps, said, “It has made a massive difference. I rely on fast access to the cloud, for downloading and uploading important work files from home. Previously if I had to upload a large file it would kill my internet connection for a day. Now I can upload files and continue working as normal and at the same time my partner has been able to watch Netflix without any interference. It has gotten to the stage that superfast internet has become a utility which we now all rely on”.

Frank McManus, head of wholesale sales and services at BT Ireland said

At BT we are always innovating, and continuously trying to raise the bar on what we’ve done before. We brought fixed line broadband to Northern Ireland; we then embarked on making it faster through fibre to cabinet technology and now we are proactively building on that by connecting customers with fibre to the premise in a number of locations within the Northern Ireland Improvement project.  It’s an exciting development for Northern Ireland and the results speak for themselves.

With over 90% of premises connected to a fibre cabinet, Northern Ireland is one of Europe’s best connected regions, and with BT’s open access network, consumers can choose from up to 27 internet service providers.   For more information on fibre broadband, availability in your area, the benefits and a list of providers, visit www.nibroadband.com.