New broadband services to offer faster speeds to firms

Companies in many parts of the UK may be set to benefit from advanced broadband technologies that could improve their use of internet-based communication tools such as VoIP.

BT has announced it is to roll out its first commercial Fibre-to-the-Premises (FTTP) superfast services at locations around the country.

This will create some of the fastest wholesale internet speeds in the UK and should allow communications providers to offer a wide range of high-speed fibre products designed to suit the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.

The technology will enable downstream speeds of between 40Mbps and 330Mbps, while upstream speeds will range from 2Mbps to 30Mbps.

As a result of this, business users may find they can get better VoIP services as they will have more bandwidth available, meaning they may not have to share data and voice services through low-speed connections.

Slow broadband could be one of the main barriers to running a successful VoIP solution, as Telappliant product specialist Ershad Islam recently explained.

He said: "If you've got something like basic BT broadband and you're trying to run ten extensions or users off it, then you will be complaining that the VoIP doesn't work and the call quality is terrible, because you just don't have the connectivity."

One solution to this is to separate data and voice packages to different broadband providers, Mr Islam suggested, but if a firm is able to access high-speed fibre services, this may not be necessary.

Initially, 15 exchange areas will receive BT's new FTTP upgrades where the infrastructure has already been developed, but this will be rolled out to other areas in the future as BT Openreach expands its FTTP network.

Currently, BT's fibre broadband is available to ten million premises across the UK and is scheduled to reach two-thirds of homes and businesses by the end of 2014.

Managing director for network investment at BT Openreach Mike Galvin said the commercial launch of FTTP is a "major milestone".

He added it will allow small and medium-sized business access to some of the fastest internet speeds in the world to help them compete and expand their operations.