BT experiencing delays with UK FTTH rollout

BT has revealed that its planned rollout of fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) broadband services in the UK is being affected by unexpected delays.

Trials involving around 1,000 premises in Britain have shown that duct blockages can cause major delays to the implementation process, meaning a seven-hour job is taking around two days in a quarter of cases.

Superfast broadband programme director at BT Johnny McQuoid told the Register that plans to have 12 exchanges prepared for the new fibre network by September 2011 are likely to be pushed back to December.

Thus far, the internet service provider has spent £2.5 billion on its mixed economy exchange programme, which aims to make 100 Mbps downstream broadband fibre optic technology available to two-thirds of UK homes and businesses by 2015.

However, the FTTH introduction is proving a stumbling block, with further problems being caused by householders refusing to allow BT to carry out the first stage of the work while they are away from home.

This comes despite BT's pledge earlier this month to conduct trials of a 1Gbps FTTH service at some point during 2012.