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BT's Openreach plots G.fast end-user trials

ISPs line up for 'superfast' services

BT's Openreach has taken another step in the introduction of G.fast services, and late last week briefed Brit ISPs on how to join customer trials.

The talks, held on Friday 17 July, were staged to get providers on board for what it has dubbed “NGA2” (Next Generation Access).

The G.Fast trial will be run in conjunction with a new fibre on demand product, according to Thinkbroadband. Friday's briefing was specific to Huntingdon, with future trial locations to include Swansea, Gosforth and Newcastle, apparently.

Thinkbroadband reckoned that in spite of the gigabit talk surrounding G.Fast, the trials will match Openreach's fastest fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) service at 330Mbps downstream / 30Mbps up (not taking into account upstream network congestion or long twisted-pair runs).

For the fibre-on-demand product, it's been reported that Openreach hopes to introduce new processes to get the price below its current price tag of between £350 for installation of up to 199 metres, to £6,125 at 1.2 miles.

BT added that it expected a “number of different ISPs” to take part in the trials.

Broadband site Recombu reported that residents in Huntingdon will be contacted in the coming weeks, asking if they want to take part in the trail.

Rival telco TalkTalk recently signed on with CityFibre in York to launch a near-gigabit product in the northern city. ®

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