The ISP owned by BT announced that trials for their fibre-to-the-cabinet broadband speeds are averaging 30Mbps.
The broadband provider announced their trial results on their blog and urged more people to volunteer for the FTTC broadband trials before it comes to an end. Plusnet also stated that ADSL subscribers who sign up for the trials before 25th January, 2011 will be able to access their FTTC service at the same price for as long as they like.
The blog post was updated by Plusnet’s Adam Walker, who also stated that though the trial is playing host to 400 volunteers currently, there was space for a few more people. But he also stressed on the fact that the trail was in its preliminary stage and therefore things could go wrong, hence new subscribers must be willing to take these risks. Furthermore the technology is not available to all.
According the Walker, all volunteers would require installation of a customer premises equipment in order to receive the fibre broadband. This installation cost will be borne by the company itself. High-speed 802.11n Wi-Fi was also required for trial participation.
Walker further noted that, “We are noticing that the vast majority of speed faults raised by our trialists are due to their wireless equipment not being able to handle the FTTC speeds. Basically the majority of people will be using wireless B and/or G standard hardware, this is fine for up to 8Mbps ADSL but is not capable of speeds of up to 40Mbps, so we only recommend using this service if you have wireless N standard equipment or plan to upgrade soon.”
He also added that Plusnet’s Value package should upgrade its tariff to a higher usage allowance as the trials show a sharp increase in usage.
PlusNet broadband has also extended its faster fibre optic 110Mbps FTTP trial until July 2011 indicating BT’s delay in rolling out the services.
