BT to upgrade 500 exchanges for SDSL

BT has announced the next 500 exchanges that are to be upgraded to symmetrical broadband services (SDSL) as part of its 12 month SDSL expansion programme revealed at the end of last year. This programme answers the needs of the growing number of UK towns and cities that require higher speed, business-class broadband services.

SDSL offers a different type of broadband experience than asymmetrical broadband services (ADSL). Whereas ADSL delivers higher speeds to users that want to download large files, SDSL allows users to both send and receive data at high speeds. This makes SDSL a more suitable form of broadband connectivity for small to medium sized businesses, remote office workers and teleworkers.

On completion of the roll-out programme, which will be carried out in two phases, a total of 1,300 exchanges will be enabled for SDSL services. This will bring high speed symmetrical broadband services to over two-thirds of UK businesses.

Based on feedback from BT Wholesale’s service provider customers, the next 500 exchanges have been selected according to the level of customer demand for SDSL services, and where there is a high density of small and medium sized businesses (SMEs) within coverage of the exchange.

The first 500 exchanges will be upgraded over a six month period starting from April 2005. The following phase of the roll-out programme will then commence in August 2005, when a further 500 exchanges will be identified for SDSL enablement.

Bruce Stanford, products director for BT Wholesale, said: “This represents a huge commitment on the part of BT to further enhance our wholesale broadband offering by accelerating the roll-out of SDSL. The wider geographic availability of our wholesale SDSL products will allow more service providers to meet the needs of the growing proportion of smaller businesses, remote office and teleworkers that require business-class broadband services, as well as generating new revenue streams from the introduction of value-added services.

“Before the end of this financial year, 300 exchanges will have been switched over to SDSL. In a little over 12 months time, that number will have quadrupled, bringing symmetrical data services within reach of the majority of UK businesses.”

Service providers will have the opportunity to nominate their chosen exchanges for the second phase of the roll-out programme up until the end of June 2005.

BT Wholesale’s SDSL products include BT IPstream Symmetric and BT Datastream Symmetric. These products are sold on a wholesale basis to service providers who then retail SDSL services to end users.

SDSL is an ideal form of broadband connectivity for any business, remote office or teleworker requiring equivalent upstream and downstream data rates for web hosting, e-mails or to distribute large files. SDSL also supports a range of applications such as Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to connect geographically dispersed sites, as well as video conferencing and Voice over IP (VoIP).

The next 500 exchanges that are to be upgraded to SDSL as part of the 12 month roll-out programme are listed on a county by county basis, along with the target date of completion for each exchange.

Please click here to view the full list.

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