BT seeks apartment dwellers to sign-up to 'superfast' FTTP trial

We really wanna blow you some cable, dears

BT is on the lookout for around 1,000 residential buildings to sign up to a pilot to allow the national telco to test superfast broadband speeds in apartment blocks.

The company said it needed to carry out the pilot on buildings in areas where its broadband had already been laid.

Fibre-to-the-premises will then be blown into those flats that agree to be part of the test by the BT's Openreach engineers.

It added that downstream speeds of up to 100Mbit/s would initially be on offer via the pilot scheme. By around April this year that speed can be jacked up to 300Mbit/s if the guinea pigs want their broadband to be even faster during the test.

The company, which has been undergoing FTTP trials in various areas in an effort to improve the time it takes to install the technology, said that upstream speeds would be "the fastest in the UK."

“We are keen to extend the benefits of our fastest broadband services to those living in apartments," said Openreach next gen access MD Mike Galvin.

"Through our registration scheme customers are clearly showing us they now seek these higher speeds and see the provision of super-fast broadband as a significant benefit.

"We are factoring customer demand into our future deployment plans but are also keen to partner with landlords and involve them in our plans.”

BT, which has invested £2.5bn into deploying faster broadband in Blighty, is also of course hoping to bid for the £530m Broadband Delivery UK (BDUK) funds from councils allocated the cash from Whitehall.

In November last year, the government confirmed it would take £100m from the £5bn national infrastructure investment pot over the course of this Parliament in a move to speed up broadband networks in selected urban areas. That cash is planned on top of the BDUK money currently in the hands of local authorities.

At the time BT said: "We look forward to working closely with the selected cities to see what can be achieved." ®