BT reaches milestone in fibre optic broadband rollout

Ten million homes and businesses across the UK can now access fibre optic broadband from BT.

The telecoms giant was originally aiming to reach this number of properties by the end of the year, but has succeeded in hitting the milestone months ahead of schedule.

By late 2014, BT is targeting the delivery of super-fast broadband to two-thirds of UK premises through its commercially-funded deployment.

However, the company believes that it will be able to achieve a fibre optic network footprint of 90 per cent if it is sufficiently subsidised under the Broadband Delivery UK framework.

Chief executive of BT Ian Livingston said: "Our engineers have worked tirelessly this past year and BT has made a real commitment to the UK's infrastructure. Our rollout is one of the fastest in the world."

As well as boosting its fibre broadband coverage, the company has seen its customer base for the service increase, with 131,000 subscribers signing up in the first quarter of 2012.